The Devil Pixie of Remnant
by A Sometimes Lazy Writer
Summary: Beacon Academy has a brand new professor. A professor that is cold, calculating, and manipulative to a fault. May Being X be with those poor students. Rated T for language and some violence. INDEFINITE HIATUS
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys. Some of you know me from my FMA:B and RWBY crossover. Sorry for not updating in a long time, but I have a perfectly legitimate reason for that.**

 **Long story short, I have accidentally deleted my near complete chapter on my laptop. I was getting rid of some old files and I think I may have clicked the chapter by accident.**

 **Anywho, this is something I just cooked up for fun, and it's a Youjo Senki crossover with RWBY. Youjo Senki is a fairly new anime and I highly recommend it cause it's pretty damn good.**

 **So this is just a little side project I've been making over the past couple weeks.**

 **I'll also try to get the Alchemy Isn't a Semblance! chapter soon, but it may take a while.**

 **So yeah, enjoy. Drop a review if you guys liked it.**

 **[-]**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own Youjo Senki or RWBY; they belong to their respective owners.**

 **[-]**

Weiss was fuming. The hapless students at Beacon Academy wisely stepped out of her way and kept an approximate five meter space from her, just to be safe. People who knew about her reputation carefully avoided any eye contact and held their breaths. People who didn't know much about her other that the fact that she was rich still kept their distance. A pissed off heiress was not one to be trifled with.

Weiss stepped out onto one of the many balconies the academy had and decided to rage in peace. Everyone on the balcony hurried off, not willing to stay with the teen for long.

 _That foolish dolt,_ Weiss started, _Ozpin clearly made a mistake. There's no way that_ she _would make a good leader. I had extensive training for years and this upstart little girl takes away the leadership spot that's rightfully mine? Preposterous! I will have to make a complaint to the Headmaster immediately._

"Why, if it isn't Miss Schnee, what a pleasant surprise!"

Weiss started and turned around, a beguiling smile on her face. She recognized that voice. "Professor Port, what brings you here?"

The said professor walked up to her and rested his arms, with a little difficulty, onto the fencing. His impressive mustache jiggled slightly. "Why I just came to enjoy the view. Beacon is very fetching in the afternoon, is it not? It reminds me of my younger days when I cleared out a horde of Beowulves on a day such as this!"

Port bellowed with laughter and Weiss simply nodded, her charming smile beginning to slip. She butted in, lest he spent the next twenty minutes talking about his adventures. "I liked your lecture!"

"Why thank you Miss Schnee, I feel as if I had positively affected the class today. And your rapier skills are unmatched! I was very impressed. Your team must be so lucky to have you."

This time, Weiss's smile did falter, if only for a split second. Port took immediate notice. He raised his arms and crossed them behind his back. "My dear girl, what seems to be the matter?"

Weiss debated whether or not to tell him. It was a bit unorthodox, but seeing how a celebrated Huntsman with connections to the upper echelons of the academy was here, she decided to tell him her woes.

"I…I think I should have been made team leader, sir!"

A couple seconds passed, and the heiress let out a tiny shiver as a particularly cold breeze flowed over the two.

"Why that's preposterous!"

Weiss was set back. But her shock quickly became clouded with frustration. "Excuse me?"

Port just chuckled and stroked his mustache. He turned to face the courtyard and lazily watched students walk across the stones. "Do you know what I see when I look at you, Miss Schnee?"

Weiss shook her head, not trusting herself to say anything that could possibly threaten her relationship with the portly teacher.

"I see a little girl who got everything she wanted as soon as she asked for it."

This time, Weiss was unable to contain herself. "That's not even remotely true!"

The professor raised a single gray eyebrow.

Weiss faltered. "I mean, that's not entirely true…"

"Miss Schnee, in all my years at Beacon, I have never seen the Headmaster make a decision he didn't mean to do. Every single team was made for a reason, and he handpicks leaders because he sees something in them."

"Well then what should I do? If I'm not leader material, then what am I?"

Port smiled slightly. "Try to be the best teammate and friend you can be. Teams aren't only built on the fact that the leader is strong. Teams are only strong if the others have an understanding with each other."

Weiss was slightly shocked. She had known this of course, but never paid it much attention, seeing how she had expected to be a leader and not a teammate. But now, those words rang true and changed something in her. Weiss fell silent and stared at her feet in shame.

The professor walked over and placed a hand on the teen's shoulder. "First off, make amends with young Miss Rose. Being a leader is a tremendous responsibility; no doubt she feels the stress now. Second, be her friend. Get to know her. Trust her. Without trust and friendship, there is no team."

Weiss nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat. She curtsied and thanked the professor for his wisdom, then left to find her leader, no doubt feeling horrible after the way she had treated the young girl.

 **[-]**

Ruby Rose shuffled through the halls of Beacon Academy, her older sister and Blake not far behind. She felt minimally better after her talk with the headmaster, but she still felt bad about setting Weiss off.

Yang and Blake, sensing their leader's mood, decided to stay back and talked amongst themselves.

Ruby sighed and picked at her cloak. Was this really her fault? Even after the talk, she still didn't feel as if she was a good leader. Heck, she wasn't even old enough to be a leader!

She was so caught up in her own thoughts; she didn't pay attention to her surroundings until a pale hand lightly grabbed her shoulder.

Ruby turned; ready to give out a hasty "sorry" to whomever she had managed to anger this time. The words were right about to slip off her tongue until her silver eyes met ice blue. The words caught in her throat.

Blake and Yang, noticing the arrival of the W of RWBY, decided to step back a little. Yang on a normal day would have been in Weiss's face in a second; no doubt threatening the heiress for making her precious baby sister sad, but today was different. Blake had convinced her to stand back and let Ruby handle this by herself. Everyone needed to learn how to face their problems, and this was a good start.

Weiss gingerly let go of her leader's shoulder and took a tiny step back, a shameful blush on her face. Ruby spluttered. "W-Weiss! You're back! Listen, I'm so so so sorry for telling you what to do when you were fighting the Boarbatusk, I was just worried and I just wanted to help, and-"

Weiss put her hand over the reaper's mouth, stifling the plethora of words spewing out. Yang flinched slightly and cracked her knuckles. Blake just raised one eyebrow. Ruby shut her eyes tightly and waited for the angry tirade to start.

The white-haired teen took a breath. "I…I just wanted to say I am sorry."

Ruby's eyes fluttered open. _What?_

"I'm sorry for yelling at you and hurting your feelings. I wasn't thinking straight and I was a little jealous that you became team leader instead of me. But I did some thinking and I decided that…you're a great choice to be a leader, Ruby Rose. You may be a dolt sometimes, but I think that you have a lot of potential."

Ruby simply blinked. What on Remnant just happened?

"And I want to start over…" This time, Weiss stuck out her hand. "My name is Weiss Schnee. Would you like to be friends?"

A couple seconds passed and Ruby just stood there, too shocked to even move. Blake was watching with interest, and Yang just hid a small smile.

Weiss's arm trembled. Maybe Ruby didn't forgive her after all. Weiss did hurt her and insulted her. She understood if Ruby didn't accept the offered friendship.

An energetic hand grabbed her porcelain hand and shook rapidly. On the other end of that hand was an equally energetic Ruby Rose, her face positively beaming with joy. "Of course, Weiss! I would love to be your friend! I made you a promise back at initiation, remember?"

Weiss remembered. The little girl she had met in the forest the other day vowed that she and Weiss would become great friends and that she would appreciate the "cool" things about her.

Weiss smiled brighter than the morning sun. She was happy that Ruby had forgiven her for her screw up. She was even happier because this was the beginning of a friendship.

The life of Weiss was a very lonely one. Her older sister had left for the military when Weiss was ten years old and rarely came to visit. Her younger brother, Whitley, was manipulative and cold, her mother passed when she was just a little girl, and her father was…well, father.

Because of her rich background, many people from powerful families tried to become "friends" with her. Weiss may have been young that time but she knew manipulative when she saw it. They were always after her riches, the company, or they just wanted her as a potential wife for the future. So she shut herself off from the rest of the world, never accepting any friendships of any kind.

But this was different. This was the first time anyone actually wanted to be her friend. And this was the first time she was willing to make one.

Weiss felt a heavy arm sling across her shoulder. Yang smirked at the now irate teen. "Well, this is nice and all, isn't it Blake?"

The person in question just nodded, her eyes trained on her schedule and her Scroll as if her life depended on it.

Yang's one-armed grip tightened slightly. "I'm sure you're both going to be great friends. If anything happens, then just call for me, yeah?" Yang smiled a devil's smile.

Weiss just shrugged off the arm and scoffed. But she knew where the blonde was coming from. Winter had been the same towards other people too before she left for the Atlas military.

Ruby hopped around excitedly, still on a high after being accepted as a friend from the ice-cold heiress.

However, they all froze upon hearing a single word from Blake's mouth. "Crap."

The secret Faunus basically started a dead sprint towards the end of the hallway and disappeared from view. The remaining three girls stood shocked, amazed that Blake was able to run so quickly, and curious as to why Blake looked so horrified.

Yang bent down and picked up a square piece of paper that fell out of the raven haired girl's hands. The brawler scrutinized it for a bit before her eye widened too. She wordlessly handed the paper over to Ruby and followed Blake's example. "Every woman for herself!" she yelled back, nearly slipping on the marble floor.

Ruby and Weiss read the paper together and soon followed suit. A cloud of dust, petals, and the single paper fluttered to the floor. They were royally screwed.

 **[-]**

Ruby was the last to burst through the wooden door to the class. If she were by herself she could have easily caught up and surpassed her sister, but the Rose was lagging behind, making sure her new friend could keep up.

And now, they literally lay on top of each other, both grunting with exertion. They quickly got up to voice their apologies to the teacher.

But nobody was at the professor's desk.

Their words fell short. Ruby and Weiss sighed in relief and shuffled over to their seats. Thank god this professor was late. They didn't know who it was, but being late to any class would mean detention with Professor Goodwitch for a week. And they did not want detention with the Witch of Beacon.

They all but collapsed onto their seats next to Yang and Blake, who had already recovered from their jog and were now laughing at their expense. Ruby, recovering from her run, decided to have a look around the classroom. To her delight, team JNPR was in the same class as well. Juane flashed them all a thumbs up and a wink to Weiss, Pyyrha just gave a small wave, Nora was…well, Nora, and Ren just nodded in their direction.

Sadly, team CRDL was there as well, and they were already picking on Juane or Faunus by flicking eraser bits at them.

Ruby then assessed the professor's desk. It was a standard wooden desk. Unlike other professor's though, this professor seemed to have basically nothing except the bare necessities, including some papers and pencils, some paperweights, and a coffee mug. Other professors usually had some modicum of decorating skills in their classes. Port had pictures of Grimm and the occasional trapped Boarbatusk, and Oobleck had a coffee machine and dozens of depictions of Remnant's past history.

Compared to other classrooms, this one was just dull. The only intriguing thing was a holo-disk on the table, but even that was turned off.

Team RWBY all took a look at the clock. 2:45. Ten minutes had passed since class started and the professor wasn't even here yet.

They stole a look at JNPR, who just reciprocated their questioning look with shrugs. Apparently, they had no idea what was taking the professor so long.

Several rows behind them, team CRDL had stopped harassing other students and was now just playing around with themselves. Cardin Winchester, an egotistical orange-haired teen with the body structure of an Ursa Major, sneered and voiced his opinions on the class. "Well, it looks like we'll be getting an easy A, huh guys?"

His cronies laughed along with him, but the rest of the class just sat in silence, whispering amongst themselves.

Cardin bent forward in his chair. "Say, fellas, that looks like a brand new holo-disk, doesn't it?"

The rest of CRDL just laughed and nodded.

The bully stood up and shambled over to the teacher's desk. Students close to him moved out of the way, lest he started harassing them.

Cardin reached the foot of the table and snatched the machine. Pyyrha stood up, her voice unwavering. She wasn't scared of a simple bully. Juane sometimes wished he had half the bravery she had. "Cardin, if you take that disk, you'll be caught and possibly get suspended for stealing the professor's property."

Cardin just tossed the disk around his hands and sneered up at the Invincible Girl. "It isn't stealing if you don't get caught. Even if one of you dweebs said something to the professor, who's probably a lazy idiot seeing professor's not here, you have no evidence to trace it back to me. I'm gonna make sure this little puppy is well hidden."

Pyyrha just huffed and sat back down. One way or another, Cardin was going to get caught. It was just a matter of time before the professor traced the stolen disk back to him.

Weiss, who was watching with annoyance, turned to Yang. "Who's the professor anyway? His name wasn't on the paper that Blake dropped."

"First off, it's a she," Yang corrected, "Second off, Blake told me her name, but it was something weird. Miss Degachuff? Something like that."

Weiss frowned that name sounded very familiar. She had sworn she had heard Winter mentioning it sometime.

 _Degachuff? Huh, that sounds almost exactly like…_

The heiress's eyes widened in terror. _Oh no._

At the same time, Cardin turned on the disk, no doubt trying to sync it to his Scroll so that the disk would say it belonged to him now. But as soon as he turned it on, a flickering message in bright red popped into existence, capturing everyone's attention.

Cardin, surprised by the sudden message, squinted against the bright light and tried to decipher the words. "Prepare for impact?"

The wall exploded.

All the students in the class were immediately thrown out of their seats by the shockwaves and were flung to the opposite sides of the classroom.

For the next thirty seconds, the room was filled with thick dust and coughing students trying to recover from the surprise explosion.

Yang was the first to recover; her Aura had taken the least amount of damage due to her abnormally large Aura pool.

She waved the smoke out of her face and helped the rest of her team get on their feet. "What the heck was that?!" she exclaimed.

A gust of wind blew through the now exposed classroom and swept the dust and debris away. Team JNPR had recovered with the exception of Juane, who was busy hacking out some stray splinters in his mouth. Most of Team CRDL had been knocked out, seeing how they were the closest to the windows when the explosion happened.

To everyone's relief, everybody seemed perfectly fine; their Aura's had saved their lives.

A small, but sadistic, laugh caught everyone's attention. They all turned to face the new hole in the wall. They were greeted with the sight of blonde hair, golden eyes, tiny body, and a smoking gun barrel. Weiss whimpered. Why did it have to be _her_?!

Tanya Degurechaff, age 11, smirked, her golden eyes cold and calculating. "Rise and shine, my precious students!" she said, her thin and childish voice shocking everyone present. "I am Second Lieutenant Degurechaff! Welcome to hell on Remnant!"

 **[-]**

 **And I'm gonna stop there.**

 **So I may update this chapter before my other fic because of the fact that my entire chapter is gone and it's gonna take forever to make up. So this will go first, seeing how I started making another chapter for this fic.**

 **So yeah, tell me how it was. Sorry for the cliffhanger at the end, I will make up for it in the next chapter.**

 **Thanks for reading and be sure to drop a review on how I can improve my work. See you guys later.**


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Youjo Senki or RWBY. They belong to their respectful owners.**

 **[-]**

It was not very apparent to other people that Tanya Degurechaff was not religious. It was kind of hard to tell, seeing how she went to church every Sunday and prayed to God before every time she fought or practiced in the Atlas military.

But for people who knew her well, which was nobody, Tanya hated God more than the White Fang hated humans. After all, it was because of the so called "God" that she was reborn on Remnant in the first place.

After being shoved off of a train station platform by a very emotionally unstable ex-employee, Being X took it upon himself to punish Tanya for her unfaithfulness.

Whenever Tanya looked back on that moment she would scoff derisively. She didn't believe in that thing and she never will. Being a God was impossible after all. Nearly all forms of logic rejected the supernatural abilities of "God." Therefore, the only logical explanation for this rebirth phenomenon would be the interference of the something similar to the devil: Being X.

Sadly, this kind of mindset was what exactly ticked off the bastard and now he was reborn as a little girl in a small village outside Atlas. At first she had been shocked. She opened her eyes after a blinding white light and found herself as a baby in a dingy orphanage. Looking up, she saw a motherly woman with humble clothes gently feeding her some baby food.

At first, Tanya had been shocked and unbelieving. She put it off as a type of ridiculous hallucination by Being X or some imaginative world he had cooked up before his brain died seven minutes later.

But she had to accept this was reality a couple of years later. If what Being X said was true, then if she died in this world, she would not be reborn again. And that was unacceptable. She wanted to make her way to the top and live a cushy life.

Some things she noticed as she grew up in the orphanage were that this world, Remnant, was much more technologically advanced than Earth's. It had robots, flying gunships, something called "mechashift" weapons, and holographic screens. The only thing they didn't do was going to space. Apparently this world's energy source, Dust crystals, lost energy as they started to leave the atmosphere.

Tanya soaked up everything she could to know more about Remnant. After curfew at the orphanage, she would regularly stop by the old library downstairs. To her surprise, the books contained English words, something she had been fluent in in her previous life. It paid off learning English to communicate to the foolish Americans that wanted to enroll in the company.

One book in particular caught her attention. It was a basic book explaining Aura and Semblances. Of course, the young girl was extremely interested in learning about these types of things. Anything that would help her survive and make her way to the top was greedily absorbed.

Apparently, every Semblance was different, but every Aura acted pretty much the same. The Aura protected while the Semblance had different types of abilities it could do. It sounded a lot like magic since it came from the soul, but Tanya had been forced to accept that it was not magic, more like a spiritual shield or whatever.

Tanya's nose crinkled up in disgust. _Uh, more about spirituality. I heard enough from that so called "God."_

However, that didn't stop her from trying to unlock her own Aura. Nearly every day after reading that book, Tanya crept out of the orphanage during lunch and explored the village, trying to find some traveling Huntsman on how to unlock her Aura.

Most of the time the Huntsman would just laugh and ruffle her hair, which she tolerated with a slight grimace, and often told her to come back when she was older. Sometimes though, she got a few helpful tips after fooling them into thinking that she was planning on becoming a Huntress to protect the world.

Apparently, there was no set way to unlock Aura. It was only unlocked during stressful situations or life-threatening scenarios, both of which did not happen often at this village.

That rang true until a year later when the village was overrun by a horde of Grimm.

 _FLASHBACK_

Tanya sighed as she trudged her feet through the dirt path towards the orphanage. She had just come back from a nearby tavern to talk to a very drunk Huntsman and try to wheedle out some tips from him, but he had just stared down at her with sleepy eyes and told her to bug off and annoy someone else.

Tanya kicked a small rock in frustration. A perfect opportunity to get answers and it was gone. Tanya stared up at the sky impassively. It was late into fall and the sky was thick with dark snow clouds. Another miserably cold day at the orphanage.

Luckily, nobody seemed to want to bother her. A couple stupid young boys had tried to tease and bully her a couple weeks back. She endured the relentless teasing for a while until one day, all the boys had been found in their rooms with massive stomachaches and had to be taken to the hospital, where they were diagnosed with severe cases of food poisoning.

It was a simple matter to switch out their bread with moldy ones when they weren't looking.

A particularly cold gust of wind whipped her hair into frenzy. The eight year old girl angrily brushed it away and brought her old parka closer to her.

Tanya looked up. She had been so lost in her thoughts, she completely lost track of time. She was already at the orphanage and just in time too. It was beginning to get dark and dinner was almost over.

Tanya reached for the door knob. She sighed in resignation. _Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow…_

Out of nowhere, the village alarm sounded. Tanya looked up in surprise. She had heard it once before when there was a fire near a restaurant, but this alarm sounded different. She craned her ears toward the sound and flashed back to the different types of alarms she had memorized from the village's rulebook. It wasn't a fire bell, it wasn't a pandemic alarm, and it sure as hell wasn't an avalanche alarm, seeing how it hadn't even started snowing yet. That left only…

Tanya's eyes widened; Grimm.

She had read up on Grimm before of course. They were soul-lacking creatures that were completely black, save a few white masks and bones, and disintegrated into ashes when they died. Some people in the village believed it was Mother Nature's wrath upon the humans, but Tanya always believed that they were once ordinary animals twisted by some kind of virulent disease. Which explained why there were so few real animals left; Grimm didn't eat regular animals after all, only humans.

But now wasn't the time to think about that. She had to get out of here fast!

The blonde looked up at the orphanage building. The lights were beginning to turn on and she could already hear shocked cries coming from the windows. Tanya debated on whether or not to get her things but decided against it. She wanted to live, thank you very much.

Tanya began running as fast as her short legs would carry her towards the emergency shelter. All around her, villagers were pouring out of their homes, all carrying their children and some very heavy looking luggage. Tanya scoffed. Fools. That would be the death of them. You can't run for your life when you're carrying around fifty pounds of kids and items.

Tanya easily outstripped the slower people, who were shuffling the same direction she was going. Tanya saw a couple Huntsman and security run around, spewing directions and aiding civilians to the shelter.

One of the security guards started to help an old woman who had fallen down from the weight of some screaming children. A Huntsman ran over to help until him and Tanya noticed something out of the corner of their eyes. "Nevermore!" screamed the Huntsman as he readied his weapon.

Sure enough, three fully grown Nevermore had started to swoop down upon the villagers, as well as some Griffons. Everybody started to scream and stampeded over to the shelter, which was now in view, illuminated with red light.

Tanya was buffeted by the crowd of people. She cursed her tiny body. People took no notice of her and nearly trampled her to death in their mad rush to escape.

Tanya was shoved to one side and fell face first into some garbage bags next to a building. She took a little bit to recollect herself. With a groan, she pushed herself up, her blue eyes burning with anger. "Damn stupid villagers." she hissed, brushing off her clothes.

With a slight limp, she started heading towards the shelter. To her alarm, the doors had begun to slide closed. Apparently everyone had made it except for the security and the Huntsmen.

Speaking of which, how were they? She looked behind her to assess the situation. Her mouth turned drier than the Sahara Desert.

The Nevermores had apparently decided that they did not like the annoying humans anymore and were now tearing them apart with their talons and beaks.

The blonde girl stumbled and fell. There was no way out of this. She had never seen a person get torn apart so easily and violently before, so she was pretty much in shock. She didn't care for them, obviously, but it was still a very disturbing sight to behold.

One of the Nevermores grabbed a still groaning security guard with its massive talons and threw him towards Tanya's general direction. The guard died immediately after landing on the dirt ground and his standard rifle clattered over to her.

Unfortunately, that brought the Nevermores attention to a shivering little girl, who was desperately trying to get up off the ground.

The black bird shrieked and stalked over. Its eyes burned red and a growl emanated from its mouth.

Fumbling with her hands, Tanya finally found her grip on the fallen guard's weapon and aimed it at the giant bird. Having never held a gun before, Tanya fidgeted around with the weapon for a bit before finding the trigger.

The Nevermore recognized the threatening stance and charged at the girl.

Tanya grinded her teeth so hard she thought they would break. She was terrified out of her mind yet she was filled with determination. She wouldn't stoop to a level where she would pray to God for assistance. No, if she were to die today at this very moment, so be it. She would not praise that bastard.

Tanya screamed in retaliation and pulled the trigger.

 _"_ _Eight years and you still refuse to believe."_

The Grimm froze and so did Tanya. In fact, everything froze. The other Grimm had stopped moving and the fires that had spread from the carnage had stopped burning. All was quiet.

 _"_ _Even at the brink of death, you refuse to even consider the possibility that I am God."_

Tanya gave a wolfish smile. "Ah, Being X, what a lovely surprise. So nice of you to stop time just before I'm supposed to die. Has it really been eight years since we last talked?"

The voice paused before starting again. _"I have decided to intervene to save you from dying."_

Tanya raised her eyebrows. "Oh? And what's your reason for that? Are you going to save me by killing this stupid bird? Then do you think that I'll praise you for saving my life? Is that it? You and I both know that's not going to work you bastard."

Tanya could have sworn Being X was smiling as he started talking again. _"No, I will not kill this soulless creature. You will. I will only unlock your Aura and make your Semblance known to you."_

Tanya blinked and grinned. Now at least she had a chance to live. She hoped that whatever her Semblance was had something to do with teleporting out of this situation or killing the Grimm.

 _"_ _But there is a catch. Every time you wish to use your Semblance, you will have to pray to me. Failure to do so will result in the inactivation of your Semblance. Your Aura will still be active, but your Semblance will not."_

Tanya spluttered and glared up at the sky. "So this is your idea?! You think that when I pray long enough I will start to believe in you? You son of a bi-"

 _"_ _Only time will tell,"_ interrupted Being X, _"Some of my most faithful followers did not believe in me in the past. We shall see if it happens with you."_

The disembodied voice disappeared.

Tanya barely had time to react before the Nevermore unfroze and charged towards the girl. Tanya rolled out of the way and felt something warm inside her. Something powerful had started to open up. This was no doubt the Aura awakening, but her Semblance was still unknown to her.

Her blue eyes crinkled in hate. She had no choice. She began to pray. "Glory be unto God, for he will deliver us from evil."

Her body started to glow gold and her eyes followed suit. Tanya took in a breath and dodged another oversized peck from the bird. "May his glory smite these soulless creatures and send them to where they came from."

She pulled the trigger.

The Nevermore barely had time to shriek in shock as golden light exuded from the gun barrel and a hot bullet brimming with energy burrowed into its flesh.

The bullet found its way straight through all the vital parts of the Grimm and exited the back, killing the bird nearly instantaneously.

The glowing projectile then exploded in a golden light, creating a massive shockwave of pure energy that killed or severely crippled the remaining Grimm in the vicinity. The explosion wasn't necessarily large, but the Grimm were packed onto a single street in their mad dash to eat the blonde girl.

As the bodies started disintegrating to ash, Tanya let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. A couple seconds passed and the only sounds heard were the bodies of the Grimm and burning wood.

A burning wooden beam crashed down, startling the young girl out of her stupor. She let out a single chuckle. Then another. And another. Eventually, it escalated into full scale maniac laughter. This was obviously not laughter of happiness and relief. There was some relief in the laugh, but it was mostly filled with hate (imagine Tyrian's laugh as he stabbed the Beowulf). She hated the fact that she had to pray to use her power. She hated Being X. She hated everything.

Tanya stared down at her hands, which were caked in mud and trash. The golden glow had started up again, healing her bruises and cuts. It felt immensely satisfying, as if she were settling into a hot bath after a long day.

She stood up and turned to face the shelter. Unfortunately the shelter seemed to have collapsed in a flurry of fire, most likely caused by a collapsed building next to it. There were no survivors. Tanya clicked her tongue. Now what?

A dull humming noise caught her attention. She looked up into the cloudy sky and saw massive headlights bearing down on the village. Atlas military. At long last, they had arrived.

Tanya stood up and started waving her hands in the air. "Hey," she called, "Over here!"

Unfortunately, they did not seem to hear her.

Tanya raised her gun up in the air and fired off a single shot of glowing energy. She wouldn't figure out until later in the hands of Atlas military that her Semblance seemed to be turning any projectile into a localized explosion. And the energy given off scaled with how much of Aura she pumped into it. The less Aura pumped into in it, the less power the projectile had, the more Aura, the more devastating the projectile would be.

This golden bullet finally caught one of the pilots' attention. No doubt he had thought the shot was from a surviving Huntsman or a security guard using a flare of some kind. Tanya smiled a devilish smile as she registered the shock on soldier's faces when they saw that it was a little eight year old girl wielding a rifle with disintegrating bodies of Grimm surrounding her.

"It's about time you all showed up; I was getting a little cold."

 **[-]**

Tanya reminisced all these events as she readied her rifle to aim at a blank wall. On the other side of that wall were her future students. It had been three years since the village had been wiped out. There was only one survivor: herself.

Because of how easily she took down the Grimm, the Atlas military took immediate interest in her. Her power was very destructive, and they saw this opportunity to use her as a weapon.

So they gave her a test to see which level of schooling to give her. They had expected her to do fairly bad, seeing how she was a poor orphan child, but to their surprise, she passed easily, exceeding all of their expectations.

Because of this, they placed her into the academy nine years early.

She fit well into the militaristic academy and steadily rose up in ranks throughout the years. It wasn't until an excursion with the White Fang that people started realizing that Tanya may very well be the devil. People had only thought of her as a cute genius.

An attempted assassination attempt against General Ironwood had failed when Tanya saw a laser sight trained on the man's chest during live-fire training in the forest. She had tackled the General with as much force as she could muster and fired a single shot in the general direction of the shooter. The resulting explosion incinerated everything in a twenty meter radius.

A bit overkill, but Tanya wanted everyone to know that even if she was young, she was ruthless, calculating, ready to kill, and not one to be trifled with.

The General thanked her profusely and later awarded her with the Atlas Medal of Bravery, much to the chagrin of a certain aspiring Schnee girl, who had strived to try and get the medal until an eleven year old child stole it from her very grasp.

The Atlas upper echelon, sensing this as an opportunity to use her as a weapon, wanted to enroll her in the military and send her on some missions to exterminate or capture criminals and White Fang. Unfortunately for them, the Council obviously did not like the fact that a child would join the military at such a young age.

After weeks of heavy debating, it was agreed that Tanya be placed at Beacon Academy for a teaching job, seeing how they didn't have a Military Strategies class. Huntsman inevitably had to work with the military sooner or later, so it made sense to set up a class at Beacon. And she was to stay and teach there until she became at least fifteen years old to officially join the military.

It took some convincing, but Headmaster Ozpin had finally accepted Tanya as a faculty member. She was, after all, well versed in military strategies, passed at the top of her class, and was a decorated and named student.

Which brings us to our current situation.

 **[-]**

The first thing the new students saw after the resulting wall explosion was a young girl wearing white Atlas military fatigues with a medal shaped like a gear. Her dainty hand nonchalantly gripped the standard issue rifle, the barrel still smoking.

Her golden eyes started to fade into blue, and she smirked at the shocked faces of the students. Her eyes rested on a certain white-haired girl, who was staring at her with a look akin to terror. _Another Schnee, huh?_

"Rise and shine, my precious students," yelled Tanya, "I am Second Lieutenant Degurechaff! Welcome to hell on Remnant!"

A hulking teen with orange hair stood up, scowling in anger. Tanya noticed that he had a holo-disk gripped tight in his hands. He stomped over to her, his face contorted with rage. "I don't care who you are, but you just knocked out my team! You could have killed them!"

Tanya nodded. "Yes, it seems so, but it was their fault for sitting so close to the window in the first place. Expect the unexpected."

"How the hell is anyone supposed to expect a stupid little girl to blow up the building?!"

Tanya smirked with devilish glee. "Insulting your new professor, I see. And you stole my holo-disk. That grounds for suspension, you bumbling oaf."

Cardin decided that he didn't want to take any more crap from the little girl and reached over to try and grab the gun from her hands.

What happened next would forever cement the respect and fear the students would have for the blonde girl.

In a flash, the miniature girl whipped the gun out of the teen's grasping hands and brought a vicious swing with the gun at Cardin's head. He stumbled; obviously in shock that such a little girl was able to pack such a strong punch. Tanya then tripped him with an outstretched foot and slammed the butt of the rifle down onto his stomach, sending out all his breath in a whoosh.

Tanya almost lazily pointed the gun barrel towards his face and aimed down the sight. "Insubordination and attacking your professor. In Atlas, you would be stripped of your rank and sent to prison. However, this isn't Atlas, so be glad I'm letting you off with the very minor punishment of a detention, even if you insulted me and attempted to steal my holo-disk."

Cardin's eyes crossed as he stared down the barrel of the rifle. He may not have been very smart, but he knew danger when he saw it. And this little devil girl scared him more than a dozen Deathstalkers. He wisely kept his mouth shut.

The blonde girl lowered her gun and straightened out her uniform. There was a dust speck on the lapel and she brushed it off lazily.

She turned to face the class, who were still in shock at what happened. Tanya looked at her wristwatch. "It's 2:50 at the moment. That means we still have an hour and twenty minutes left in class. Plenty of time to start what I meant to do today."

She looked back up at the class, who had started to whisper amongst themselves. They still had qualms on whether this was the new professor or not, but nobody dared to argue.

Tanya straightened up. "Well, what are you waiting for?! I want all of you to get your weapons and make it to the Emerald Forest. Headmaster Ozpin authorized the use of live fire training today. I will be shooting shells at your locations. Your goal is to stay relatively alive until the period ends. The last person to arrive at the forest will be cleaning up the debris alone! Get to it!"

Everyone scrambled out the hole in the wall, eager not to make the diminutive girl angry. Cardin just whimpered and dragged his bruised body off the grass. He ran after the fleeing teens, followed by his teammates, who had woken up just in time to see their leader get beat up by an eleven year old girl.

Tanya watched them leave with a grin. This was going to be fun. And it was safe too, with no danger of being killed in action. A cushy job terrifying children. This should be easy.

She glanced down at the classroom and sighed. "Great, how am I going to explain this to Glynda?"

 **[-]**

 **And that's it today.**

 **Sorry for a suspicious lack of action, I just wanted to explain how Tanya got to where she was on Remnant. I'll be sure to include more action in the next chapter.**

 **If you guys didn't like my idea for her Semblance, I'm sorry; it just seemed fitting seeing how she fires artillery spells at WW1 style soldiers all the time.**

 **And before you guys rage about why Atlas enrolled her so early and stuff and turning her into a weapon, the LN did it too so why not this situation?**

 **Anywho, I had fun writing this and I will try to get another chapter done soon. My other fic will be updated ASAP.**

 **I will have Teams RWBY and JNPR interact with little Degurechaff in the next chapter.**

 **Drop a review if you guys liked it and feel free to give me some feedback.**

 **Peace out.**


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys, it's me.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been up to my godamn ears in work and studies. I apologize for not updating this story in months, and I just wanted to say that I have no intention of ending this fic. Youjo Senki is just too good.

Luckily, I am almost done with my work, and I shall have a new chapter updated by Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning, PST.

Please be patient, and I swear something like this shall never happen again (I can't guarantee that seeing how life hates me but I'll try).

Anyway, thank you guys so much for enjoying my story, and I will do my best to keep you happy. Please leave suggestions for me to do, I always read PM's and reviews.

Thank you!


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Youjo Senki or RWBY. They belong to their respectful owners.**

 **[-]**

Ruby grumbled as she hacked and slashed the foliage in the forest with her beloved Crescent Rose. Assisting her was Blake, who had unsheathed Gambol Shroud and used both the blade and the sheath to cut through the vines.

Following closely behind them were her older sister, Yang, and her new friend, Weiss. Ideally, the work would be a lot faster if all four of them helped out with clearing the way, but Weiss decided sorely against it.

This wasn't because she was an heiress and didn't do that kind of work, but it was simply for the fact that if they did help out, they would inevitably draw the attention of the new professor, Miss Degurechaff.

If Yang used Ember Celica, the shotgun blasts would be seen for miles, and if Weiss used Myrtenaster…well you really couldn't do much with a rapier to clear bushes.

A crack of a single bullet exiting a rifle barrel caught their attention. RWBY gazed up at the sky and saw a golden projectile traveling at high speed heading somewhere to their left. There were unidentified screams and yells of pain from the resulting explosion. Weiss winced. This wasn't the first time that demon had done this to students.

Actually, to her knowledge, Second Lieutenant Degurechaff did much worse. She heard horror stories from Winter and actually witnessed it first-hand. And that was _not_ something she wanted to remember.

She heard Yang slam her fists together and her eyes flickered between crimson and lilac. "I know she's supposedly our new professor and all, but sending us into a Grimm-infested forest while she shoots at us? I don't care who she is, I'm gonna teach her a lesson. There's no way she could be a professor anyway."

Weiss opened her mouth to object. She had to tell the blonde before it was too late. Underestimating Tanya Degurechaff was a grave mistake. But surprisingly, Blake beat her to the punch. "Yang, I understand how you feel, but that professor is bad news, I guarantee it."

Ruby paused her swinging and ignored a strip of vine that landed on her shoulder. "What do you mean?"

Blake looked down for a second, tightly gripping her weapon, which did not go unnoticed by the heiress. "Let's just say I have some…connections, in Atlas. Degurechaff is one of the most sadistic people you will ever hear about. How she got a job here is beyond me."

Another bullet whistled overhead and the girls all flinched. There was a resounding boom ahead of them this time.

Ruby hefted her weapon. "Well there's no use in talking about it right now. We have to keep moving. If we can find Juane and the others, we might have a better chance getting through this."

"YEE-HAW!"

The four girls turned in surprise and beheld a scene that would have most rubbing their eyes and questioning their sanity.

A fully grown Ursa, not unlike the one from Initiation, barreled through the trees, carelessly knocking over smaller bushes and rocks in its way. On its back was none other than Nora Valkyrie, who had looped her arms around the Grimm's neck and was hanging on with as much strength she could muster.

Nora gave a little wave and her eyes twinkled with madness. "Hi-ya, girls! You might wanna start running now~!"

The girl disappeared with a whooping laugh and the poor Grimm groaned with fear. For a while, everyone was stock still, trying to comprehend what the hell they had just witnessed.

"Nora! Wait up!"

A gangly blonde boy with a girl with red hair and another boy with a pink streak in his black hair jogged into the area, clearly following the wake of the Grimm's destruction. Juane bent over and gasped for breath, while the other two didn't even look tired. Ren looked as nonchalant as ever, as if chasing Nora piggy-backing a rogue Grimm was normal (which it probably was by now), and Pyyrha gave a smile and a wave. "Hello again!"

The shocked girls could do nothing but wave back.

Juane lifted his head, which was dripping with sweat and covered in dirt. "Thank Oum we found you guys," he wheezed, "Nora has done nothing but attract Grimm to us and riding them. This is her fourth Ursa today. You think you can help us out?"

"Incoming!" Pyyrha yelled.

All looked up and got into defensive positions. Sure enough, a golden bullet was arching over and was pointed straight at them. As quick as a flash, Weiss whipped out her rapier and stabbed it in the ground, setting her dial to "Ice" dust.

A wall of fractal ice erupted from the tip and formed a gargantuan wall of white between them and the bullet. To others, it seemed a little bit overkill, but Weiss knew better. If you wanted to get away from the resulting explosion with more than a quarter of your Aura left, you would throw everything into defense. Unfortunately, that would usually lead to a depletion of your resources. Weiss had just used up more than fifty percent of her Ice Dust and did not wish to use up the rest.

The entire wall shook with the impact and pieces of ice broke of and were flung across the sky. Luckily, the teens Aura's protected them from the worst of the blows, but several shards were able to cut their skin.

Outside the wall, a golden mushroom cloud billowed out, stirring up leaves and charring any trees nearby.

Juane coughed. "Is she trying to kill us?!"

Weiss pulled out her weapon from the ground and brushed off clumps of dirt that threatened to stain her white outfit. "I wouldn't put that beneath her…"

Ruby used Crescent Rose as a crutch to pull herself up. "By the way, do you know Miss Degurechaff, Weiss? It looked like you recognized her earlier."

Weiss sighed. "That's a story that would take too much time to say. And we do not have time on our side. I'll tell you later, but first we need to get out of this first."

Ren spoke up, a lone twig caught in his hair. Other than being a little dirty and bruised, he looked as normal as ever. "Agreed. First, let's find Nora and maybe find some cover."

After a unanimous agreement, the teams escaped under the cover of the foliage, the only trace of them ever being there was the dissolving ice wall.

As the teens sprinted through the trees, following a clear path of the Ursa held hostage by Nora, Weiss looked behind her, white hair bobbing with her movements. _Honestly, why is she here,_ wondered Weiss, _And why did Winter not warn me that she was coming?_

Given Winter's and Tanya's less than stellar relationship back in Atlas, it didn't make any sense why her older sister didn't warn her of the coming lieutenant. She kept close tabs on her and tried to get an edge on the diminutive girl as much as possible.

Another golden bullet streaked overhead, this time heading to the ruins from Initiation. No doubt some poor group thought that would be a safe place to hide out at.

Weiss gracefully sidestepped a fairly large paw print in her path. _Please, Oum,_ Weiss prayed, _Just let us get out of here alive…_

 **[-]**

Tanya whistled merrily as she loaded another magazine into her favorite rifle. It was plain to look at, with no clear defining features. It was a simple standard Atlas-issued military rifle, used by infantrymen everywhere.

The only unusual thing about the gun was that it was an outdated model. It still operated the same as the modern ones, but with less damage output due to its shorter barrel. However, Tanya didn't mind. For someone her size, carrying around a rifle with a long barrel would be torture. This gun was the only one that fit her comfortably.

Also, there was some modicum of sentimental value behind the rifle itself. After all, it was the same gun that had saved her years ago from the Grimm. It had stuck with her ever since and she cleaned it regularly.

Tanya didn't believe in luck, but she couldn't deny that the rifle seemed to get her out of many situations that would have killed lesser men.

She glanced over to a boulder right next to her. On the top of it was a bag filled with extra magazines for her rifle and a medium sized Scroll.

Ever since she had been taken in by the Atlas military for experimenting, the higher ups wanted to improve her power as much as possible. Thus, the testing began.

First, they tested out different types of guns for her. They swapped her trusty rifle with a single-shot sniper rifle, and asked her to pump as much Aura in it as possible to see how devastating the effects would be. Of course, because of the smaller magazine size, she was able to pump in enough Aura into the bullets as she saw fit, which led to some pretty devastating explosions. The training grounds were never the same.

Next, they gave her a machine gun. She found it harder and more taxing to insert a set level of Aura into the bullets, so she compensated by using less Aura but shooting more. The resulting explosions were weaker but shot faster and more frequently.

All in all, Tanya ultimately chose her trustworthy rifle, since it was able to switch between semi-automatic and automatic, which gave her more diversity.

Next, they gave her specialized magazines with bullets loaded with Dust. The regular magazines used by soldiers only used tiny amounts of Burn Dust. Hunters and Huntresses could handle more amounts, which was exactly why the military gave her those ones.

First was Ice Dust. When shot, the resulting explosion would not only destroy the area, but flash freeze it as well, which made it very handy in dealing with large groups of Grimm that strayed too close to the borders.

Second was Lighting Dust. When this was shot, the bullet would become laced with electricity, leading to very devastating effects. Tanya especially found it helpful in taking down enemy ships because of its EMP effect, knocking out all electronics.

Last was Burn Dust. By far the most normal, all Burn Dust did was set fire to the area after the explosion. But it was by no means useless. The diminutive girl found it the most fun to use.

As of now, she was busy loading on Lightning Dust. After all, a majority of her students were wearing metal armor or had metal weapons. Even if the bullet itself didn't hit them, the arcs of lightning will still be attracted to the metal.

She glanced at her Scroll, still whistling a merry tune. This Scroll was a gift from one of her more promising cadets, Viktoriya Serebryakov. Viktoriya had undying loyalty to her squad leader after being saved from a rampaging Ursa Major in a training excursion. Tanya shot it in the head as soon as it reached the terrified woman.

Viktoriya had stuck with her through thick and thin, helping out her leader whenever she had trouble.

She even saw Tanya off when she got the transfer letters to Vale. Tanya was positively beaming when she got the message. No danger of dying in a training exercise or being buried alive by an avalanche.

Viktoriya helped her pack her bags. As they were packing, she wordlessly handed over a small wrapped box to her superior. When Tanya asked what it was, the girl just smiled and winked. "Something to call back home if you ever get lonely," she said.

The blonde was never one to pass up free gifts, so she thanked her and put it in her pocket, vowing to activate it once she got to Vale.

To her chagrin, Viktoriya also had another gift for her: a light blue dress that she had once worn when she was little. Tanya just laughed nervously and said that it was too big to fit her. Viktoriya simply put a finger to her lips. "Well, you're a growing girl! I'm sure you'll fit into it eventually!"

Tanya grimaced internally, but politely thanked her in order to not seem rude. She had stuffed it deep within the confines of her bag, vowing to never let it see the light of day ever again.

Tanya shook her head to clear her thoughts. This was no time to reminisce about the past. She had some students to break.

On her Scroll was a live camera feed of the entirety of the Emerald Forest, graciously given to her by Headmaster Ozpin.

Well, she said 'graciously', but it was more like 'polite reluctance'. Apparently the Headmaster still didn't trust her abilities. To be fair, she didn't blame him. After all, she had the body of an 11 year old.

She scanned the feed. Camera 13 caught her attention. It seemed the members of Team CRDL had finally shown themselves, skulking around and avoiding clearings of any kind. Even after thirty minutes of steady bombing, that boy, Cardin, still held himself with pride and refused to stop and rest, much to the ire of his teammates.

Tanya couldn't help but admire his stubbornness. He had the build to be a top soldier, with the only problem being his inflated ego. She pushed the magazine into her gun, making a satisfying click. She smiled. The proud ones were the most fun to break.

Through the camera feed, she saw Cardin turn toward the cliffs she was standing on and made fairly rude hand gestures. He was also yelling, but that was drowned out by the sound of her Aura activating, sending a dull thrum into the bullet.

Tanya felt her power grow and her eyes started to bleed into gold. "I pray unto God, for his power will defeat the Evil One."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Team CRDL noticed the glow of her gun and were now running for their lives. Cardin especially pushed his teammates out of the way in his mad dash to thicker trees. She grinned. There was no way she was going to let her favorite targets get away that easily.

"Please, oh God, lend me your power to infuse your Holy Spirit into the unfaithful!"

With a crack of electricity, the bullet shot out, imbued with Aura and crackling with lightning. The arcs of lightning shot out everywhere, making the bullet resemble a ball of electricity.

It shot towards their location with a boom and disappeared into the trees. For a moment, all was quiet. Then a dome of crackling electricity erupted from the trees. If one was observant, he could see that there were four bodies in the light, all shaking uncontrollably as several hundred volts coursed through them.

Tanya made sure that she didn't put too much Aura into her bullets. She wanted to batter and bruise her students, not kill them. That would put quite a stain on her pubic record.

She also didn't want to use more bullets than necessary. Making bullets infused with all kinds of Dust was a dangerous business, so it was fairly difficult to replenish her stocks. For now she was fine, but later she may have to go down to the forges and ask the professor there to make more.

The blonde shouldered her rifle and glanced at her small wristwatch. It was almost time to end class. She figured she should probably rally the students and meet her at the cliffs. They didn't do as bad as she expected. She thought the children would be running around, uncoordinated, and inexperienced in team play. But so far, they weren't half bad. Especially the team with the Schnee girl.

Tanya set her rifle down on the boulder and picked up her Scroll. She quickly sent out a message to all the students in her class to come back to the cliffs.

Tanya sighed blissfully. _Yeah, life is going along swimmingly._

 **[-]**

Team RWBY all but collapsed on the ground, quickly followed by Team JNPR. They had spent a good portion of the class running for their lives in a Grimm infested forest while the smiling girl a couple meters from them repeatedly shot bullets.

If Ruby was to state her opinion, she would have said that the ordeal was more tiring than Initiation itself. And she felt that her friends would say the same. All they had to worry about in Initiation was the occasional Elder Grimm and getting to the finish. Now, they had to worry about Grimm and a little girl with serious trigger finger issues.

Tanya adjusted her hat as she eyed the panting students. Teams RWBY and JNPR seemed the most well off of the group, as they used their skills to dodge around the bullets. The Schnee girl impressed her slightly with her display of Dust and the Nikos girl used her Semblance to move the bullets around.

Cardin's team was the last to arrive, all covered in dirt and some were still twitching after that electric bullet from earlier.

Cardin bent over, gasping for breath. He looked up with hate in his eyes in a bid to intimidate the blonde. Of course, having spent the last 11 years fighting for her life, Tanya was completely unphased. She was more scared of the orphanage ladies punishing her for breaking into the library and taking the books. She was glad they were dead, to be honest.

Cardin pointed a shaking finger at her. "You bitch! Were you trying to kill us?"

Tanya smiled, sending shivers down everyone's spines except for Cardin's. He was too mad to notice. "Oh ho? Cursing out your professor? Do you realize how much trouble I can put you in, Mr. Winchester?"

Cardin stood up and strode over, shoving people in his way. He stormed over and stood right in front of the blonde, who was still smirking. "Shut the hell up! There's no way you're our professor! You're probably just a sadistic little girl who came by to mess with us! I don't care who you are, but you just pissed off the wrong guy, you little bitch!"

He pulled back a fist, all sense of reason gone. Tanya blamed the electricity frying what little brain cells he had left.

She reached behind her back to grasp the handle of a knife. It would do very little damage to the pissed off teen, but she had enough training to exploit all the weaknesses in the buffoon before he collapsed.

Right before his fist came sailing towards her face, Tanya let go of the knife. She smiled a bit. _Looks like I don't have to dirty my hands on this one._

"That's enough, Mr. Winchester."

The teen's hand became engulfed in a purple glow, effectively stopping his fist within two inches of Tanya's face.

She nodded her head. "Professor Goodwitch."

The newly arrived professor ignored her and strode over to the class, who whispered how screwed Cardin was. Juane internally smiled. He got what he deserved.

Cardin, who had just now noticed the older blonde, paled and stiffened immediately. "P-Professor!" he exclaimed. Even Cardin, the official bully of Beacon, was unwilling to go toe to toe against the Wicked Witch of Beacon. "I can explain…!"

"No need," interrupted Goodwitch, gripping her riding crop tighter and adjusting her glasses, "You will have detention with me for the next three weeks for language and attempted assault on a professor. Be glad that I didn't make this harsher than it should be."

The class erupted with whispers. So it wasn't a trick. This little girl was actually the new Military Studies professor.

Weiss groaned. Her worst nightmares came true. She had no doubt that this class would officially be hell for her and the other students, especially for that idiot Cardin.

The blonde woman relinquished her hold on the teen's arm, and he shuffled off to his team, his eyes still burning with hate, but mostly filled with fear. Since this girl was the professor, he knew that this class would officially be known as "Cardin's Daily Punishment" Class.

Glynda huffed and walked over to Tanya, who had been watching with hidden amusement. "Professor Degurechaff," she said, "Exactly what were you thinking when you decided to nearly blow up the entire West Wing and force all the students to undergo strenuous 'exercises' in the middle of the Emerald Forest while you shot explosives at them?"

Ruby couldn't help but giggle, even as tired as she was. This was gonna be good.

Tanya cleared her throat and turned, her bright blue eyes piercing into Glynda's. "Quite simple, really. Since nobody would have ever taken Military Studies seriously if an 11 year old child walked in proclaiming to be the new professor, I took it upon myself to beat some sense into their heads."

As she said this, she rove her eyes over the students, who shivered and recoiled.

"I must apologize for the wall, but you must understand that I did this in order to prove I will not tolerate insubordination in my classroom."

Teams RWBY and JNPR bristled. All this to prove that she was the new professor? Wasn't that a bit overkill? All she had to do was to get a professor to prove her qualification. Sure, that would not have stopped the inevitable jeers at the little girl's expense, but forcefully taking them out of class and bombing them for more than an hour? She was crazy!

Glynda's eyes narrowed and she gripped her riding crop until it creaked. "So you did all this just to get a point across?"

Tanya straightened her hat once more. The wind was picking up and it was annoyingly trying to take her hat to god knows where. "Exactly. You may not agree with what I did, but Headmaster Ozpin gave me permission to do so. How would you explain how I got live camera feed of the entire forest?"

Glynda huffed. Back when Atlas was still deciding on whether or not it would be fitting to place Tanya as a teacher in Beacon, Ozpin and Glynda had done everything they could to not make that happen. Glynda had been the most vocal. Under no circumstances she felt that having an eleven year old teach children a full six years older than her was okay.

However, both Glynda and Ozpin quickly shut up when they saw Tanya's past achievements, most of them being on tape. Ozpin just looked on with intrigue and varying degrees of sadness as he witnessed Degurechaff blowing up several ships with White Fang members on it without the slightest look of remorse.

Glynda had been sick to her stomach. She felt extreme pity for the young girl. After all, no girl should be used to death and suffering. She was 11 for Oum's sake! And she was able to kill people without feeling any guilt whatsoever.

They both grudgingly agreed to have her teach with heavy hearts. It was sad how an eleven year old was already tailored to death at that age. Of course, Tanya wouldn't have agreed, seeing how she was secretly a reincarnate of a middle-aged salaryman in modern Tokyo. So it was safe to say that she was used to death. She wasn't used to people being killed in front of her, but she easily got over it when she shot that Nevermore and its friends to oblivion. She had to survive, and she wasn't going to let pity get in her way.

Goodwitch glared at young Tanya, who just stared back, her blue eyes twinkling in false innocence. "Fine," she turned to the rest of the class, who was watching them in morbid fascination, "This period should be over by now. Proceed to the lockers and put away your weapons. Dinner will be available shortly."

She turned and walked away, not seeing Degurechaff's mock salute behind her back.

Tanya turned to the students, who were beginning to get up and stretch, eager to make their way to the lockers and take a hot shower and relax after that entire debacle.

"All of you can go except for Team RWBY."

The team in question turned in shock. Why were they the ones being singled out? They looked to the rest of the class for help. However, they would not find any. Everyone else had started fast-walking back to the school, too afraid to even look behind them. JNPR was among the rest of the class, and they just shot guilty thumbs up and mouthed words of encouragement.

That did very little to encourage the four girls.

Ruby shivered; not because of the cold, but anticipation for what was going to happen.

Tanya glared at the four girls in front of her. The Rose girl was doing her best to meet her gaze with her own but kept failing. The Schnee girl tried looking brave, with her head up and shoulders straight, but was also failing to keep her composure. Xiao Long wasn't shivering at all, mostly because her Aura had a heating side effect, and Blake just looked at her with…disgust. Strange.

The diminutive girl cleared her throat. "Team RWBY. I commend you for having the idea of teaming up to have a better chance of getting out unscathed. Miss Schnee, you showed impressive work with the Ice Dust. No doubt your sister would be proud."

Weiss bristled slightly but put on a fake smile, which was easily interpreted by the young Major, and curtsied.

"But I did not tell you all to stay behind so I can congratulate you. It has come to my attention that all of you were late to class today. Which is why I will have you stay behind and help me reorganize my room. No doubt Glynda has finished patching up my wall, but the room is still a complete mess."

Yang was the first to speak up, her eyes starting to flash crimson. "Wait a minute! Why not have Cardin and his team stay behind and help you? I mean, he did worse than us being late to class!"

Tanya inspected her fingernails. "Under normal circumstances I would, but Glynda said that she would handle detention with them. Make no mistake, I plan on doing nothing less than making the boy's life a living hell in my class, but I have to have some people to help me in clearing out my room. Is that clear?"

Yang opened her mouth, no doubt to fire off scathing comments that would have had her dad clean her mouth off with a bar of soap. Tanya glared at the four girls, her eyes narrowing and her posture straightening. "I said: is that clear?"

Her eyes flashed similarly to Yang's, except they flashed an icy gold instead of a fiery red.

Yang's voice died immediately. She grit her teeth and walked away, followed closely by the rest of her team, who politely excused themselves.

Tanya turned herself and went to go pack up her things. A small smile graced her petite features. This was going to be a fun couple years indeed. Maybe she could apply for a job at Beacon in the future. This was the safest job she could ever dream of.

Oh, how wrong she was.

 **[-]**

Ozpin sighed as his trusted friend walked into his office. No doubt Glynda was about to fire off some scathing comments about young Degurechaff's attitude and method.

"Headmaster, were you thinking straight when you handed Professor Degurechaff the camera feed for the forest? Did Oobleck put something in your coffee?"

Ozpin smiled slightly and took a small sip of his freshly brewed coffee from Haven. His dear associate, Professor Lionheart, gave several boxes of coffee to him as a gift for helping him refurbish his office.

"It would have been rude to deny a request to a professor, would it not? And I do not believe Professor Degurechaff would do anything to sabotage the live feed. From what I have heard from James, she is the epitome of a perfect soldier and doesn't disobey commands. So I gave her very specific directions on what to do and what not to do."

"Even so, giving such things to a child would hurt our reputation. I know you like giving things to gifted students, but please, show some restraint."

Ozpin felt sweat drip down his head. She said "giving", but Ozpin more or less very reluctantly offered the video feed to her. He could not risk Tanya shooting blind and potentially hitting a student with one of her powerful bullets, so he gave her the camera feed as a necessary precaution.

Ozpin leaned back into his chair and stared at the constantly shifting gears above his head. "You and I both know that Miss Degurechaff is not at all who she seems to be."

Glynda kept silent but grudgingly agreed. There was a certain…maturity to her. Maybe because of the harsh life she had been born into, but this was different. Glynda knew harsh. And while having your village destroyed by Grimm and being the sole survivor of said village was harsh, she could not help but feel that that situation had very little to do with Tanya's personality.

It was almost as if she were a monster in the form of a little girl.

 **[-]**

Blake grunted with exertion as she picked a chair off the floor. This normally would not have been a problem for the trained girl, but after running through the woods, nearly dying, and killing Grimm, she was sore everywhere.

She looked back at her team. Ruby and Weiss were busy trying to pick up several books that had been blown away by the explosion. Yang toted the professor's desk, which was around three times heavier than she was. Even in her sore state, Yang was still very strong. Blake sighed. Tedious work, this was.

At least they didn't have to worry about the rubble and dust created from the explosion. Professor Goodwitch easily put it all back together with her Semblance, and not a single speck of dust remained on the floor. So they had that going for them.

Blake stared at the newly erect chair. Well this was a fine predicament. She had been trying to run away from her past, but it seemed like nothing would let her get away. First, she ran away from Adam, which caused him to send the entirety of the White Fang after her. Then she tried to run away from discrimination by hiding her cat ears with her bow. She didn't want anyone to know she was a Faunus and she wanted to keep it that way.

But this was probably the worst kind of situation she could not run from. Tanya Degurechaff, one of the most hated persons targeted by the White Fang, was here, teaching of all things. If she found out that Blake was an ex-member of the White Fang, she would have no problems with killing her right then and there.

Blake felt her grip on the chair tighten. That demon had no remorse when it came to killing. She took down far too many White Fang members who were simply fighting for peace, as skewed as their sense of peace was.

And she would never… _never_ …forgive that girl for killing her friend.

 _"_ _Psst, Blake, wake up!"_

 _Blake groaned and rolled in her bed, unwilling to go out of her tent into the frigid cold of Atlas._

 _The figure rolled his eyes and poked her. "Come on, we gotta go, we're gonna be late!"_

 _This time, Blake did get up, one of her cat ears folded over and her eyes filled with annoyance. She let out a massive yawn. "Can't we leave later, Jett?" she begged._

 _Jett rolled his dark blue eyes and yanked the blanket off the sleepy teen. "If we don't do this now, we might lose the chance to do this another time. And if we lose this chance, Adam's probably gonna punish us."_

 _Jett was one of the many friends Blake had in the White Fang. He was an eagle Faunus, whit tufts of black feathers sporting from his head and arms. He wore all dark colors, allowing him to sneak up on enemies or blend in with the shadows._

 _Blake sat up, her expression becoming grim. "Yeah, just give me a sec, I'll get dressed."_

 _Jett raised an eyebrow at her sudden mood shift. He shrugged it off. She was probably still sleepy and mad at him for waking her up at five in the morning. He stood up and walked out of the tent._

 _Blake rolled out of her blankets and started to dress up. She did this every day with practiced ease, but today she dressed slower than usual._

 _She was scared._

 _Scared of what they were about to do. Scared of Adam. Even scared of Jett, by a small degree._

 _Adam had been growing increasingly violent over the past couple months. After Ironwood gave the military rights to shoot White Fang members on sight and sending soldiers to storm Atlas White Fang Headquarters, Adam finally had enough. He convinced the leader of the White Fang that Ironwood had to be disposed of._

 _After agreeing with him, Adam came over to Blake's room and told her to meet up with Jett and get to Atlas within the week._

 _When she asked why, Adam simply looked at her and smiled darkly, sending shivers down her spine. "Getting rid of a pest, of course."_

 _And Jett didn't help either. He was a great guy and all, but he hated humans as much as Adam did. He acted cheerful and happy whenever he was with his own kind, but became increasingly sadistic as he shot down his human targets with practiced ease._

 _In short, Blake wasn't sure if she liked how the White Fang was operating. Whatever happened to the peaceful protests before? Now, with Adam in charge of the Vale branch of the White Fang, they were planning assassinations and bombings._

 _Blake shrugged on a white cloak. It was snowing outside, and wearing it was going to help her blend in. She put on the hood to mask her jet black hair._

 _Good thing she wasn't going to be the one killing. Jett immediately leaped at the opportunity to assassinate the hated "Good General", and went about stockpiling resources and cleaning his weapon, Shadow, a black sniper rifle that was able to break apart and become bladed tonfas._

 _Long ago, when Blake and Jett first met, she asked him why he liked his sniper so much as opposed to other weapons. He simply gave her a cold smile and said: "Cause it's so fun watching a human's head explode!"_

 _He said it so cheerfully, as if he was discussing the weather. And frankly, she didn't know how to feel about that._

 _She stepped out of the tent, shivering slightly in the bitter cold. Jett had already put on a gray overcoat in order to blend in with the rocks. Shadow was slung over his shoulder, and he tossed her a small binocular. "Don't let me down as my spotter today, kitty cat!"_

 _Blake glared at him. "You know I hate that name."_

 _"_ _Which is exactly why I do it!" he chirped._

 _Blake rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's get this over with. I just want to finish up and get back to Vale."_

 _Jett gave a mock salute, his dark blue eyes twinkling with mirth. "Ma'am, yes, Ma'am."_

 _Blake couldn't help but smile._

 _Jump forward to an hour later, and Blake was perched on top of a small peak on a nearby hill. She held her binoculars to her face, making sure the sun didn't shine off the lens._

 _It was fairly cloudy, but Blake didn't want to take any chances of being seen so she hid in the shadows, perfectly concealed in the snowdrift._

 _About two miles ahead of her was a small camp with several tents. Those tents held around twenty elite soldiers, being evaluated by General Ironwood himself._

 _She idly noticed a tiny tent among the larger ones in the area. What kind of soldier would be able to fit into that tiny thing?_

 _Her earpiece vibrated. "Jett to Blake, I am lined up with the camp, maybe around half a mile away. What's your status? Over."_

 _Blake reached for her mic. "Blake to Jett. It looks like they are getting ready to start their training soon. They're filing out with all their gear on. Over."_

 _She looked through the scopes. Ah, there he was. General Ironwood, guarded by two of the top model Atlas droids, came marching out of his tent, looking unbothered by the biting winds breezing through the winter woods._

 _She spoke in her mic again. "Blake to Jett. Target has been spotted. He is heading towards the training grounds with the dummies on a field. The other soldiers are there already. Over."_

 _She heard Jett swear. "Jett to Blake. I can't get a clear shot at the target. I have to move a bit closer. Tell me if any of them looks my way. Over."_

 _Blake heard him moving around in her earpiece. She scanned the area once more. Yes, it was an okay move to get closer. It didn't matter anyway if the soldiers hear the gunshot. Their guns were not meant for long range combat, and the General had only two droids guarding him._

 _After a couple minutes, she heard cracks of gunfire as the soldiers shot at the dummies and went through their exercises._

 _She looked through the binoculars once more. To her surprise, she saw what seemed to be a child, maybe around nine years old, running and shooting with the soldiers, her vibrant blonde hair hidden by a standard issued Atlas helmet that looked like it was modified to accommodate her smaller frame._

 _Blake shook her head in sadness. Now Atlas was appointing children to fight in the military? That went against every moral ground she stood upon. No child should train to see the horrors of battle._

 _"_ _Jett to Blake. I am in position. Make sure nobody is aiming towards me. I kinda wanna get out of this alive. Over."_

 _"_ _Blake to Jett, you are clear to shoot. Nobody is close to the General except that child soldier. And she isn't even looking towards you. You are clear. Over."_

 _She heard Jett sigh, his voice low. "Now they're recruiting child soldiers? I know humans are low, but even I know how low something should go before it gets ridiculous."_

 _Blake heard Jett fumble with his weapon. "Well, I'm gonna need to use my laser sight. Don't worry; it'll only be for a second. I just need to get a clear shot; the sun is blinding my vision a bit."_

 _Blake nodded apprehensively, even though he couldn't see her. It was a bold move, but if Jett could play it off, he would be in and out in a matter of minutes. Because of his eagle traits, he was able to glide through trees with ease. He couldn't fly, but he came damn close to it._

 _Blake sighed. After all this was over, she and Jett would rendezvous with a White Fang pilot approximately five miles south. Given their skills, it would take them less than five minutes to get there, even with the heavy baggage on there. They would be in and out before they even knew it._

 _Of course, that was when things immediately went wrong._

 _All of a sudden, the tiny blonde kid tackled her superior to the ground. It was just their dumb luck she had turned just in time to see the laser sight trained on the man's chest. The laser wasn't even on there for a full second!_

 _Blake swore loudly. "Jett, we have been compromised. We need to evac, now! They're aiming guns towards your location!"_

 _She heard Jett get up and grunt. "No! I still got this; I can plant a bullet right between his eyes. Even if the soldiers do see me, they can never shoot this far!"_

 _Those were the last words she heard Jett say. In the span of a couple seconds, she saw the blonde child pull the trigger of her gun and send a single bullet towards his location._

 _If it was a normal bullet, Blake wouldn't have to worry. Normal bullets could not go far. Even Hunter's specially issued Dust bullets would not be able to make that distance._

 _But this was clearly not a regular bullet. It was glowing gold and left a trail of pure energy in its wake, speeding over to Jett's location._

 _She gasped. "Jett! Get away from there-!"_

 _A dull boom reached her ears as she saw a small explosion rock the trees. Crackles of golden energy wafted off the blast sight, and the smoke stopped her from seeing if her friend was okay or not._

 _She scanned the tree line with bated breath. He had to be ok. He was an eagle Faunus; he should have seen it coming. He could have evaded in time. He could still be alive. He had to be…_

 _Blake's breath hitched in her chest. The smoke had cleared quickly due to the steady wind from the mountains. In the crater was…Jett. His body was blackened beyond recognition, and he still grasped Shadow, the metal of the weapon steaming and warped from the heat._

 _He was gone… just like that…_

 _She had to snap out of it. She had to evacuate and get to the ship. But she couldn't tear her eyes away from the sight. "J-Jett…"_

 _She was forced to finally flee when she saw several soldiers beginning to storm the area. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. The mission was a fail. And it was all because of her. Jett was dead because of her…_

When she got back to base in Vale, Adam had been furious. He stalked around the building, screaming orders and vowing to get justice on the "devil that murdered our friend in cold blood."

But the situation didn't stop there. Over the next few months, it was recorded that the blonde girl, now known to be Tanya Degurechaff, was responsible for shooting down several White Fang ships and executing members. Adam had been livid.

Which was why she left not a week later. Adam was growing unstable. She hated Degurechaff too, but she was scared to stay. So she ran and didn't look back.

"Blake?"

Blake started and turned, jolted back to reality. She looked back at her team, who looked kind of worried. Ruby giggled nervously. "You were kind of scaring us. We kept calling you but you looked like you weren't listening."

Blake stumbled over her words. "Y-Yeah…I was just…thinking."

The rest of the girls looked unconvinced but they accepted her answer. Yang was the first to speak up. "Well, hurry up, these chairs aren't gonna fix themselves."

Blake nodded and quietly went back to setting up the chairs. She heard Weiss and Ruby arguing about the books and how to place them.

"Come on, Weiss! It's not like Professor Degurechaff is gonna know that some books are out of order!"

"Unlike you, I wish to stay alive. Degurechaff is not the lazy type and I don't want to get detention from not organizing her books correctly."

"But Weeeiiiisssss! It's sooo booooring!"

"Then go stack some chairs while I do this, you insufferable dolt!"

Blake smiled slightly. At least her new friends were still alive and well. And she wanted to keep it that way. That meant no revealing her secret identity to them; she didn't want them to become targets for the White Fang.

Her eyes hardened as she straightened a chair. She was going to keep them from harm, no matter what.

 **[-]**

Many miles to away from Beacon, a lonely warehouse stood on an abandoned port, repeatedly beaten by waves and wind.

Inside the dingy warehouse was bustling with activity. A multitude of White Fang members organized large crates of Dust to their designated locations.

In an isolated corner of the giant building, two people would be seen arguing, both looking like they would like nothing more than to tear the other to shreds.

"What I am saying, is that I want to know what she has planned for all this Dust," Adam growled, his teeth bare, "And since she's deciding to keep her mouth shut, I'm just going to have to beat it out of you!"

The man he was talking to scoffed, adjusting his bowler hat and lighting a cigar. "Ok, well lookie here, bull boy," said Roman Torchwick, his cane twirling in his hands, "I have no idea what Cinder is doing either. So you might wanna go file complaints against her instead of come to me."

Adam growled and reached for his weapon. Torchwick did the same, bringing his cane up into an offensive stance. Behind him stood a small girl with pink and brown hair, her porcelain features interrupted by equally pink and brown eyes, which glared at Adam.

Before they could start wailing on one another, a sultry voice spoke up from the din of the busy warehouse. "My, my, I hope I'm not interrupting something."

They all turned to face the doorway to the room they were in. Leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe was a young woman with raven black hair and a short crimson dress, glowing with threads of gold. Her dark amber eyes twinkled dangerously.

Adam made no move to put his weapon away. "It's about time you showed up, False Maiden," he spat, "I was about to make a scene."

Cinder chuckled. "Oh no need for that. I have some information that will keep you…distracted from the Dust we're collecting."

Adam didn't put down his weapon, but his posture relaxed slightly. "Oh? And what information can you give us that is more important than risking my brothers and sisters lives for your little operation?"

Cinder smirked and wordlessly tossed a Scroll at him. The teen easily caught it with his free hand and stared down at it. For a while, he just stared at the screen.

Then he gripped it so hard the screen cracked. If he had no Aura, he would have had deep gashes on his hand by now. "This will…suffice for now."

Cinder smiled. "You are free to do whatever you want in the matter of this subject. Hopefully, you won't have any problems later on."

As she said this, she ran a slender hand across his cheek. Unfazed, the Faunus bat aside her hand and strode out, his movements stiff and jerky. He turned his head to face her. "But mark this, Witch. If you harm my organization, I will have your head along with that devil's."

He disappeared, barking orders at his fellow Faunus.

Roman coughed and Neapolitan put away her weapon. "Well, Cinder, what kind of bait did you give to that animal?"

Cinder giggled a bit and tossed the shattered Scroll into a nearby trash can. "Oh, just some annoying and potentially dangerous pest that can affect out operation…"

On the screen of the broken Scroll showed a fractured image of a small blonde child in white military fatigues. She had bright blue eyes, and held some papers that held transcripts to one place: Beacon Academy.

A dangerous pest indeed.

 **[-]**

 **And I'm done for today. To make up for the long hiatus, I made this chapter around 8000+ words, just for all of you.**

 **Again, I apologize for the extremely long wait, Being X decided that he did not like me very much and piled on a crap ton of work to do.**

 **I hope this never happens again in the future, but you never know. Hope not.**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading. I put in a little bit of Blake's history with waifu Degurechaff first. I will have Weiss's backstory with her in the next chapter. Then we can have some fun!**

 **Yeah, so leave me a comment or PM me on what I can improve upon. I'm always looking forward to getting better at writing stories for ya'll. I'll try and get another chapter out ASAP.**

 **Thanks again, and I'll see ya all later. Peace!**


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Youjo Senki or RWBY. They belong to their respectful owners.**

 **[-]**

The sun rose gently over the glorious backdrop of Beacon Academy. It was a crisp morning, with a gentle wind and the sky was dotted with multitudes of clouds.

If one stood from the Bullhead landing strips, he could see that Beacon itself was alight with fractal light. This was due to the millions upon millions of drops of morning dew on the buildings from last night's colder weather.

All of the buildings were covered with it, from the giant clock tower rising high above the other buildings to the forges down below.

It was in one of these buildings where young Tanya Degurechaff was sleeping.

She awoke to the dull buzzing and beeping from her nearby alarm clock on her bedside drawer. With a slight groan, she rolled over the bed and dropped a hand onto the alarm button, cancelling the noise. She blearily opened her bright blue eyes and stared at the clock. 5:30. She had to get ready for class.

Tanya sat up on her bed and stretched, yawning widely. She was never a fan of mornings, no matter how nice the weather was outside. Being in the military was punishing, since she was forced to wake every morning at 4:30 sharp by her CO.

Tanya rubbed her eyes and glanced around the room.

She had moved into the professor's quarters just last morning, and most of her boxes and suitcases were still unopened. She usually traveled light when on missions, with only a small suitcase containing the bare necessities.

However, since she was to stay and teach here for the next couple years, she figured that she might as well get comfortable. So along with her briefcase, she filed a request to move most of her personal belongings to her new room.

She had brought along several boxes of military strategy books, a couple spare rounds for her gun, clothes, and a couple of pictures from her days back at the Academy.

Personally, she didn't feel the need to bring it. She couldn't care less about her "friends" back at that school. But Viktoriya had been in the room with her and told her not to forget the photos as she was packing, so she had no choice but to take it.

Oh, and there was also that horrible blue dress. Maybe she could throw it away and blame the moving guys for losing it.

Her room was fairly decent as well. It was a very basic one, with a small, one person bed, bathroom, and a nearby closet for her clothes. She was pleased to find out that as a professor, she didn't have to wear the constricting outfits the students wore every day. She had enough of that back at Atlas, thank you very much.

So she decided to settle with wearing her usual military fatigues, except with more comfortable shoes and hat. She couldn't wear that damn thing everywhere.

Tanya swung her dainty feet off the bed and practically skipped over to the bathroom. She drew back the curtains of her shower and turned the knob. While she waited for the water to heat up, she was busy brushing her teeth. As she brushed, she formed several ideas in her head as to what exactly to teach today.

Now that the students had a level of fear and respect for her, Tanya was free to go all out and educate the children on basic military strategies. They were training to be Hunters and Huntresses after all. They all had to work with the military sometime or another. They couldn't have Hunters just running willy-nilly into battle without proper education on tactics.

While efficient in a solo group, a team of Hunters would do terrible while working together with the military.

She had heard stories about that. Some group of newly fledged Hunters got cocky in a joint operation with Atlas soldiers and rushed straight into a trap by the White Fang.

The soldiers had tried to save them, but they died along with that team.

This incident brought attention to the Council, and they unanimously stated that all Hunters and Huntresses in training should have to learn basic strategies used by the military. And what luck it was to have the law enacted at the beginning of the school year, right after she was promoted?

If the law was enacted at an earlier date, Tanya would have missed her chance to become a teacher at a cushy academy.

Tanya stepped into the shower and sighed in bliss as the hot water blasted her tiny frame. Hot showers were very rare in the military. One could only wash up for so long before the CO's started cracking down on them. She saw that happen to Viktoriya once. The poor girl had to run several laps around the enormous academy in subzero temperatures.

Tanya started to rub her hair with shampoo. For a reincarnate of a middle aged salaryman in Tokyo, she was doing quite well in this body.

Admittedly, it took a little while getting used to. The constant lisp annoyed her somewhat, but she learned to live with it. There was also the thing about not having…those parts…on her that made it even more awkward, but she got over that pretty quickly.

After a relaxing shower, the blonde immediately set out on dressing up. She tossed her pajamas onto her bed and shrugged on her suit. It was a routine she went through almost every day for the last three years.

She laced together some more comfortable boots and grabbed her Scroll from her table. With a deep breath, she reached for the door handle.

Tanya almost laughed. She was actually nervous. Not because she had to teach a bunch of kids, but because she had to do a good job. Back at the academy, she was in charge of terrifying and disciplining the new cadets through any means necessary, even by physically beating them. They were training soldiers, not scholars.

But Vale was different. No doubt Ozpin would throw a fit if she started to physically assault her students, so she had to restrain herself. She had to make a good impression in order to stay in the school.

But, that should come easy to her. One does not simply rise to the top of one of Japan's most prestigious businesses by being incompetent.

Tanya let out the breath she was holding and turned the knob. "Showtime." Tanya whispered. Her blue eyes flashed gold.

 **[-]**

Weiss awoke to a loud whistle directly in her ear. With a yelp, she leaped into the air and frantically looked around, her senses on high alert while adrenaline pumped through her body.

Windows locked? Check. Door closed? Check. No threats nearby? Check. Smiling Ruby holding a whistle while smiling brightly? Double check.

"Wakey wakey, Weiss!" chirped Ruby, her silver eyes glinting with amusement, "We gotta prepare for classes!"

Weiss opened her mouth to fire off a plethora of comments that came to the top of her head. She caught herself, however. _Remember Weiss, she's a friend, and friends don't insult each other…yet._

So instead, Weiss gave an annoyed scoff and lightly shoved Ruby off her bed, sending her down to the ground with a huff. "Ruby, please, next time just poke me or something."

Ruby's head popped up. "Yang tried that earlier, you know?"

Weiss's eyebrow rose up in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Well, long story short, the whistle wasn't the first time trying to wake you up…" she pointed to the wall behind her, which was spider webbed with cracks and a good sized hole in the middle, "Yang tried to wake you up but you sleep-Semblanced and threw her into the wall with your Glyphs."

Yang's voice echoed from through a nearby door. "And you ruined my hair! Thank Ruby for saving your life. I was about to punch you into next Tuesday."

Weiss rolled her eyes. She swung her feet off the side. "Where's Blake?"

Sure enough, the raven-haired teen was nowhere to be seen. Her bed was immaculately cleaned; the sheets straightened and set up. Her books were organized in her bookshelf in an orderly fashion.

This is what Weiss appreciated about Blake. Unlike her other two roommates, who sought to destroy whatever property she had, Blake was calm and collected. She liked things quiet too, and was always polite.

This was why she felt a certain kinship for the teen. There was someone she could relax with and let all her stress seep away.

Weiss turned to Ruby. Well, that wasn't to say she didn't enjoy Ruby's and Yang's company. They were both insufferable, but they meant well…most of the time.

Ruby sat down next to the white-haired teen, her expression suddenly downcast and worried. "I dunno. She left extra early today. I don't know why, but it looked like she had a lot on her plate. She didn't even say bye to us."

Her silver eyes looked beseechingly onto Weiss's eyes. "Do you think it's because of Professor Degurechaff? She looked like she knew who she was."

Weiss scoffed lightly. "Come on Ruby, to my knowledge, Blake has never been to Atlas in her life. There was no way she met Tanya otherwise. Whatever she's thinking about must be about something else other than school."

Ruby sighed. "Yeah, I guess so…" she suddenly turned to Weiss. "By the way, you still owe us a story. How do you know Professor Degurechaff?"

"I'll tell you later," she ignored Ruby's pouty protests. "That's not to say I won't tell you. As soon as we get everyone together, I can discuss it. It seems like they want to know too."

She smiled down at Ruby, who still had a cute pout on her face. "Oh, stop it, just wait till breakfast."

"Ugh, fine, but it better be interesting."

With that, she skipped over to the closet and started to take out her uniform. "You have no idea…" muttered Weiss.

She glanced over at her Scroll. It was nearly time for school to start. Weiss shivered, suddenly uncharacteristically cold. If Tanya was here, that was bad luck. It always seemed she drew trouble wherever she went. Then again, this was Vale. Nothing extraordinary happened here other than the occasional robbery.

"Weiss, catch!"

Weiss turned just in time to receive a slap in the face with her school uniform.

The rest of the morning was filled with shouts of indignation and a giggling Ruby.

 **[-]**

And now they were at breakfast in the main cafeteria. All around team RWBY was the bustling activity of hundreds of students, all going about their daily routines.

They had found Blake on their way to the cafeteria. When they asked her where she was and why she left so early, Blake just replied with a shrug and merely stated that she was walking to clear her head. Her face betrayed no emotion whatsoever.

Weiss idly picked at her peas. On her plate were a variety of vegetables, some milk, and a banana. The best way to start off the day was with a balanced breakfast. Father made sure to beat that in her head ever since she was young. He refused to allow "unhealthy" behaviors to affect her in any way.

Hell, he even beat her once after she tried to sneak a cookie away from the kitchens when she was a little girl!

Weiss felt the table shake slightly as they were introduced to the sight of team JNPR. Jaune gave a small hello, Pyyrha smiled and waved, Ren nodded, and Nora immediately challenged Ruby to a cookie eating contest.

Weiss looked on with disgust as she witnessed the messy scene. How Ruby was still relatively healthy after eating five chocolate chips every morning was beyond her. Weiss was well aware of the fact that Ruby was a speedster and needed sugar whenever it was necessary, but this was taking it a step too far.

Weiss popped a tomato into her mouth, letting the juices squeeze in. Now that they were all here, she guessed it was as good of a time as any to tell them about her personal history with Professor Degurechaff.

Weiss cleared her throat. "So, I'm guessing you all want to know how I know Professor Degurechaff, am I right?"

All activity immediately stopped. Blake suddenly gripped her fork, which didn't go unnoticed by the white-haired teen. Yang slowly shoved a bread roll into her mouth, her attention solely focused on Weiss. Ruby and Nora gulped down their last vestiges of cookies, and the rest of JNPR simply sat in silence, their food left untouched.

Ruby gulped. "I mean, if you really don't want to tell us about this, you don't need to…"

Weiss shook her head. No, it was better to tell them now. About how Degurechaff really was. She had seen one too many people fall for the blonde girl's charms. They all thought she was a perfect soldier who dearly cared about her troops.

But Weiss knew the truth. That girl was a sociopath, ready to take down anyone on her way to the top.

Weiss idly speared some salad with her fork. "Where should I start…?"

 _"_ _Miss Schnee, your ship is here," stated Klein, his mustache jiggling ever so slightly._

 _Weiss sat up from her bed and adjusted her hair. It was a lovely day in Atlas. If she took a moment to look out her window, she would have seen the fresh snow that had fallen overnight, blanketing everything in a fine, white powder._

 _But she wasn't interested in any of that. She was finally going to see her sister after three years apart!_

 _Winter had left for the military, leaving Weiss alone with her younger brother and Father. Her father had been livid. He had wanted Winter to take over the Schnee Dust Company, but Winter was adamant. She started her skills were wasted if she just sat at a desk all day and signed papers._

 _There was also the added fact that Winter was influenced by General Ironwood. After he saw her easily take care of several White Fang terrorists, Ironwood openly stated that Winter had the best fighting skills he had ever seen._

 _Father never really forgave Ironwood for taking Winter away to the military. But Weiss understood. Winter hated being cooped up. She much preferred to see the world and explore, like how a bird is restless to spread its wings after being caged for so long._

 _Weiss shrugged on a white overcoat, helped by Klein. She smiled a quick "thank you" and made her way out the door. She waited for Klein to lock her bedroom door and closely followed him from behind._

 _Schnee Manor was an extremely large, but lonely building. It was filled with ancient memorabilia and art pieces. Just the things in this hallway alone were enough to pay for several blocks of the nearby city._

 _Because there were only a couple people living in here, Father decided to shut down certain parts of the manor to save power. The closed off sections were still cleaned by the staff, but nobody lived in those areas._

 _Klein looked over his shoulder, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "I take it you are excited to meet Winter again?"_

 _Weiss scoffed lightly. "Excited would be an understatement to be sure. Ecstatic, more like. I'm so glad General Ironwood allowed me to see her today!"_

 _There was a huge joint operation to take down a White Fang hideout earlier in the week. Winter had been part of it, alongside several elite troops and Ironwood himself. They had successfully taken them down and captured several Fang agents._

 _Weiss had no love for the Fang. They were murderers and thieves. Father hated them for sabotaging his business and assaulting family members. Weiss still remembered the day that Mother died._

 _They had been going for a car ride with the entire family on Christmas Eve. The limo was jam packed with several presents for the lot of them. This was before Father was how he was now. Before he became cold and distant._

 _Weiss had been about 8 years old, and Winter had been 13. Whitley was still a child, at the young age of 4. He was cuddled in Mother's arms, and she was humming a lullaby to help him sleep._

 _Mother…there was no words to describe her…she was beautiful. She looked like an older version of Winter, a fact that Winter was very proud of. She always doted her mother, who had always encouraged the ancient art of fencing onto the young children._

 _Mother's kind face was smiling. She turned to her husband, who was busy entertaining Weiss by making shadow puppets and teasing her about spoiling what gifts she got._

 _Weiss giggled with mirth and Winter just looked on with amusement. She tried to act mature, but it was Christmas Eve! She could entertain everyone just for a little bit!_

 _Suddenly, the limo screeched to a halt. Presents went everywhere and the passengers were thrown out of their seats. Father was the first to recover and immediately made his way to the front, presumably to yell at the limo driver._

 _Mother tried her best to stand up. She had taken a nasty hit to the head by one of the presents and blood was flowing freely from her skull. Despite this, she tried to calm the crying Weiss and Whitley down by smiling and saying that it was okay. That it was just a deer they almost hit._

 _Winter was a bit more wary. She had seen something moving outside the window. Several things actually. Her gloved hands gripped her rapier, which was settled between her legs. Something wasn't right._

 _All of a sudden, the doors flew open and gloved hands reached into the limo. Weiss screamed in terror as they were all dragged out of the car and into the dark, frigid air. Father was yelling. He was trying to fight back, alongside Winter, who had brandished her weapon and was slashing at everyone she saw._

 _Mother was busy trying to protect Weiss and Whitley, the latter having woken up and was screaming in fright._

 _Weiss looked back to see her assailants. Her terrified blue eyes met the bone-white mask of a Grimm. Her eyes widened. White Fang._

 _The man holding her sneered and dragged her out by her hair towards the back of the limo. Weiss struggled and screamed in pain. But it was useless. After all, what could an 8 year old girl do against several trained members of the dreaded Fang?_

 _She was thrown onto the muddy road along with Father, Mother, and Whitley. Weiss's eyes widened. Where was her older sister?_

 _To her horror, Winter had been disarmed and was being beaten by the White Fang. It was a terrible sight to a child. Her older sister was still struggling, even as several fists beat across her face._

 _Her Aura absorbed most of the blows, but Weiss heard a dull crack as a fist from one particularly large Faunus punched Winter in the nose. Blood flowed freely._

 _She felt her Mother grab at her and scream at the men to let her daughter go; that she was disarmed and couldn't fight back anymore._

 _Father was livid. He tried his best to fight back and save his eldest daughter, but the many men held him down, even to the point of laughing in his face._

 _A crack of a fist on Winter's face echoed through the forest. Winter's head was snapped left and she fell to the ground, dazed._

 _The Faunus ignored the screaming. One of them, presumably the leader, swaggered over to the screaming family and idly pulled out a pistol. It was a standard issue one. One that wouldn't even penetrate the defenses of a trained Hunter. But Father was no Hunter. He had no Aura to protect himself with._

 _The Faunus grinned, his wolf ears flicking ever so slightly. "Jacques Schnee. For your crimes against Faunus kind, the White Fang has hereby sentenced you to death."_

 _Mother screamed in rage and attacked, pulling out a small knife that she had hidden in her boot. She was no Huntress, but she knew how to fight relatively well. Her will to protect her family was so strong; she threw logic out the window and hacked away at the leader._

 _But the Faunus just laughed. He easily dodged around the swings and batted the knife out of her hand. He whipped her across the face with his gun, sending her down._

 _Weiss gripped her younger brother, covering his eyes from the scene._

 _Father yelled obscenities at the Faunus. "Leave her alone, you animals! It's me you want! Take me and leave my family alone!"_

 _The leader smirked and pulled back the hammer of the pistol. "Oh, you care for them, don't you. Well how about we kill your wife too? Time to feel what we all felt when you sent our kind to die in the mines. Families were destroyed because of you. In fact, my son died in those damned mines. I guess it's time to have a taste of your own medicine."_

 _He pulled the trigger._

 _The crack of the pistol echoed through the forest. Father had stopped struggling as soon as he saw his beloved wife twitch once and still, a single bullet wound seen on the back of her head. She was gone. Just like that._

 _The Faunus smiled. "Well, I still have five more bullets left. Plenty enough to take care of the rest of your family. Who should I kill next?"_

 _To Weiss's horror, he turned to face the still motionless Winter. "Maybe your heiress to the company? I wonder how that would affect the SDC in the future?"_

 _Father screamed with rage. "Leave her alone, you son of a bitch! Take me! Take me!"_

 _The damned Faunus grinned madly again. His cronies also started to laugh, their cruel and derisive voices echoing in Weiss's ears._

 _The leader walked over and pulled back the hammer once more. "Say goodbye to your future, Jacques Schnee."_

 _Another crack of the pistol._

 _But this time it was different. Instead of the sound of the bullet hitting flesh, it pinged off of something. The Faunus leader's smile left his face. He looked down at the now twitching girl._

 _He backed away slowly as Winter got up. "Okay, so you got a bit of Aura left in you. But can you stop a full magazine from being pumped into your body?"_

 _As he said this, the rest of the group not holding the family grabbed their rifles and aimed it at the now standing teen. Weiss saw her body tremble._

 _"_ _I'll kill you…" Winter's voice was just barely a whisper. It was barely heard over the winds gusting through the trees._

 _The White Fang laughed. What could a 13 year old girl do against several trained members of the Fang?_

 _She looked up, her eyes filled with angry tears and blood running down her face. "I'll kill all of you animals!"_

 _She screamed in rage just before the guns started to fire._

 _A huge glowing glyph flickered into existence in front of Winter, effectively stopping the bullets from hitting her. Weiss heard the leader snarl. "She can't fight much, her Aura should be too low! Don't stop firing!"_

 _Another glyph faded into existence next to the teen. Weiss's eyes widened. She recognized that glyph. It was…_

 _A fully formed white Beowulf howled with malice, startling everyone nearby. The Grimm's eyes flashed a cold blue, and it bounded over to the Fang soldiers. There were several screams as the Beowulf made quick work of them, sending several flying into the trees with powerful swings of its arms and killing more with its deadly claws._

 _Weiss felt Father cover her eyes and Whitley's eyes. But unbeknownst to him, Weiss was still able to see everything through a gap in his fingers._

 _She saw how the Beowulf killed all of the members and sliced a leg off of the leader. He screamed in pain and fell to the ground, whimpering in agony._

 _Just before the white Grimm raised its arm for the killing blow, Winter gave a single command. "Stop."_

 _Immediately, the Beowulf froze and started to slowly dissolve into the air. Apparently her sister had run out of Aura. But that didn't look like it would stop her._

 _Winter slowly stalked over, stopping only to pick up her rapier, which lay forlornly on the dirt road. The Fang leader raised his arms, his eyes filled with terror. "Please! I was only doing what I was ordered to do! Let me live! Please!"_

 _Winter stared down at the trembling Faunus. Her face was impassive. Her blue eyes normally filled with love and kindness was as cold as a glacier._

 _Without a word, she plunged the rapier into the Faunus's chest, right through the heart._

 _The body jerked once and fell still, a single rattling breath leaving the body._

 _They had been found by the military later. They had come to investigate several gunshots and screaming, only to find the dead bodies of the White Fang and a crying Weiss, Whitley, and Jacques. Winter still stood over the dead body of the leader, unable to rip her eyes off the dead man's face._

 _Father was never the same after that._

 _He grew more cold and distant, shutting off his feelings to the rest of the world. Mother's death really took a huge toll on him._

 _He also started cracking down on the Faunus, creating harsher conditions for them with little pay._

 _Honestly, Weiss didn't care about that. She felt that it was justified after seeing Mother brutally murdered by a Faunus. It was a bit of payback and a warning on not to mess with the Schnee family anymore._

 _Now she wasn't so sure, but she was young and impressionable at the time; no one could blame her for hating Faunus._

 _Winter also changed. Deep down, she was still the same sister Weiss knew and loved, but she covered it up with a mask of cold impassiveness. Even if the Faunus leader killed her mother, murdering him was nothing to be proud of. Murder was murder, no matter what scenario._

 _Which was why she clicked so well with Ironwood. He came to her, intrigued on her abilities with glyphs and fighting. He helped her. Helped her get over her shock and rage. Helped her go through the months of therapy involved after the incident._

 _Father appreciated it, of course. He couldn't have his future to the Schnee Dust Company be dragged down by her past._

 _But he hated Ironwood for taking Winter away from him. Winter stated that Ironwood gave her a position in the military, where she could grow and become a top soldier._

 _Father was livid. He raged and cursed at Winter, who did nothing but stand still, even as a plate shattered across her shoulder._

 _In the end,Ironwood was able to convince him. Weiss slightly hated Ironwood for that. He took her sister away and left her and Whitley at the hands of a cold father._

 _But Weiss got over it soon enough. She knew Winter was happy. And that she still loved all of them. If she was happy, that was enough for Weiss._

 **[-]**

 _Weiss shook her head from side to side. She had no room for such morbid thoughts. She had gotten over them years ago. Now, all she wanted to do was to visit her sister after all these years._

 _Father almost didn't let her go, but he was busy concerning over the matter of a Dust mine that had recently uncovered a plethora of Dust, so he let her go while he took over that business._

 _Klein stopped in front of two huge mahogany doors, embroidered with twisting shapes and spirals. He pulled away at the door without a single sound coming from it._

 _Weiss made a mental note to congratulate the staff for oiling the door. Its loud creaks annoyed her to no end._

 _They both stepped into the hangar, filled to the limits with top notch ships and cars._

 _They made their way over to the new Bullhead model, equipped with twelve Dust cartridges for energy instead of the usual ten. This made the Bullhead faster than before, with more maneuverability._

 _The ship was already idling, ready to take off at a moment's notice. Two pilots were supposed to take her there, along with an escort from the military._

 _Klein helped her into the large ship and bowed slightly as she sat down, the wind from the turbines whipping up her hair that she spent a lot of time on._

 _"_ _I will see you in the evening, Miss Schnee," he half yelled over the turbines powering up, "Please give my regards to your sister!"_

 _Weiss smiled and flashed a quick thumbs up._

 _With that, Klein closed the door. Weiss felt a tap on her shoulder and saw one of the pilots holding up a pair of headphones to block the excess noise from the ship._

 _She took it gratefully and slipped it over her head. Over the din of the ship, she heard the voice of the pilot. "It's gonna take us around 20 minutes to make it there because of air traffic, so better take this opportunity to rest up."_

 _Weiss nodded for confirmation and leaned back in her seat. Hopefully Winter was as excited to see her has she was excited to see Winter._

 **[-]**

 _True to the pilot's word, they arrived at the base in around the allotted time period. She was gently woken up by the other pilot as they were making their descent._

 _High above the clouds, Weiss was able to make out the majority of the military base. Several small buildings were seen towards the mountains, presumably holding classes and the cafeteria._

 _To the east were several training grounds, all filled with running soldiers on their daily laps. Even at this distance, Weiss could see the CO's screaming at them. One seemed to be a very short blonde girl._

 _The Bullhead touched down on the tarmac, sending powdery snow from the previous night into the air. The door opened and she was assisted outside by several military officers, no doubt here to take her to her sister._

 _A couple soldiers made their way over the Bullhead, presumably to check the plane and refuel it. Some soldiers walked over to the pilots to chat. Perhaps they were military buddies at one point?_

 _Weiss allowed herself to be escorted through the many barracks and towards the small buildings to the north._

 _They passed by the soldiers she had seen from earlier. They were still running, but most didn't look out of breath. "That's the daily routine for them, Miss," said one of her escorts, who sported a grizzled beard, "The CO's have been working them like dogs ever since they came to this academy."_

 _Weiss nodded. "Speaking of which, this is a military camp, not an academy. What are students doing in here?"_

 _"_ _General Ironwood suggested it, in fact. He felt that he needed to teach the students on a more hands-on approach instead of just teaching them through books and simple exercise."_

 _A mop of clean, bright golden hair stepped into her vision. Weiss blinked as the extremely short girl from earlier walked past them, coldly glaring at the students who had finished their run. All of them were standing straight, only the tiniest bit of sweat dripping from them to show their exhaustion._

 _But there was one dirty blonde man who was bent over at the knees, gasping for breath. None of the other cadets helped him get up straight. Their eyes were all fixated on the tiny blonde girl, who stalked her way over to the young man._

 _Her voice shocked Weiss. "Private Goldenrod, stand at attention!"_

 _Dear lord, was the General crazy? This CO couldn't have been more than eleven years old!_

 _Private Goldenrod wasn't the smartest of this company. Ever since he got here, he refused to accept the fact that a child was his commanding officer, so he took nothing seriously._

 _He said to his teammates, who were mad that they got punished every day because of him, that he would not take this entire thing seriously if the military didn't take him seriously. He came here to become the best soldier in Atlas, but instead he was being ordered around by a little girl._

 _Goldenrod looked up, his face twisted in fury. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant," he spat, "But I would be standing straight if it weren't for someone keeping me late all night because I had to scrub the entire barrack restroom with a toothbrush!"_

 _Everyone held their breaths, even Weiss. She didn't know who this child was, but she couldn't deny the fact that danger seemed to ooze out of her every pore. She was dangerous, Weiss discovered that immediately._

 _Tanya Degurechaff said nothing, her face impassive as she stared down the private. Goldenrod shivered slightly, but he put it off as the cold rather than the imminent danger._

 _"_ _Do you have anything else to say?" Tanya asked, "If so, spit it out now. I have better things to do with my time than discipline insubordinate privates on what and what not to do."_

 _This time the teen did stand up. "Yeah, I got a few things to say. Ever since I got here, you've been ordering us around two times harder than the other CO's. Now, I don't know if it's because you feel so empowered, but you're just a kid. Kids have no business being here. I don't know what the military was thinking when they allowed a little bitch into the army, but-"_

 _It all happened quickly. In a flash, the teen was on the floor again, groaning and grasping his stomach. All Weiss saw was a raised foot from Degurechaff to indicate that she had actually kicked a private. Which everyone seemed fine about. She knew that being in the only military academy on all of Remnant was tough, but she didn't know they were allowed to physically attack their own students._

 _Tanya stared impassively at the whimpering teen. "If you really feel that way, you should leave. I am willing to let that insult go, but if you insult a commanding officer a second time, you will be forced to leave the premises whether you like it or not. I have no time for ineptitude. Now get up."_

 _With that she turned, facing Weiss for a brief second. Shocked blue eyes met icy gold ones, which were slowly bleeding into blue._

 _Goldenrod stood up, bristling with anger and humiliation. Kid or not, she was gonna learn not to mess with her elders!_

 _"_ _You cunt! I'd like to see you try and make me leave!"_

 _He leaped over to the lieutenant, who made no move to turn and face him. That just made him angrier._

 _He threw a furious punch at the teen, all qualms about hitting a child thrown out the window._

 _Weiss saw her escorts reach for their guns. A private attacking a CO was not unheard of. Several weak –minded students have snapped over the years. But if a private got a hold of the CO's gun, that was a serious problem. They could not allow random shooting to occur and hit anybody._

 _But it seemed they didn't have to do that. Right before the teen was able to punch the blonde in the face, she twisted on the balls of her feet and grabbed his arm. She hoisted it over her shoulder and flipped him onto his back, sending all of his breath out._

 _As the teen gasped for air, Tanya reached for her pistol and cocked the hammer back. "Insulting_ and _attacking a CO? You just earned yourself a worse punishment that what I was originally going to give you."_

 _She smiled slightly. Weiss felt weak. That smile…it reminded her of him. The Faunus that ruined her family's life. The animal that almost killed Winter. The man that murdered her mother. Both had that sadistic smile on their face._

 _But this little girl scared her more. Maybe it was unnerving because she was so young, but that wasn't it. Weiss felt that she was more of a monster than that Faunus leader and a Grimm combined._

 _"_ _Maybe I should shoot you and check for any abnormal brain activity. Have you ever heard of Phineas Gage? He had a job at a railroad once. But an accident sent a four foot long metal rod straight through his head, piercing the brain's left frontal lobe. He lived, but his behavior completely took a 180. Maybe that could happen to you."_

 _Goldenrod was nice and terrified now. He made a terrible mistake when he insulted Tanya Degurechaff. He should have listened to the graduate's warnings._

 _To Weiss's horror, she saw the sadistic smile creep up her face as she ever so slightly pulled back at the trigger._

 _She opened her mouth to stop her. Distract her, even. She didn't wish to see another death!_

 _"_ _Lieutenant Degurechaff!"_

 _Immediately the girl stopped smiling and pulled up her gun, switching it back onto safety mode. Her golden eyes slowly turned blue, and she turned to face one of the few girls in her squad._

 _Viktoriya Serebryakov gulped. "I-I think we should let the higher ups take care of this. You can't take this serious of an offense into your own hands…"_

 _Silence._

 _Weiss's mouth dried up a long time ago. Now, she was unable to tear her sight away from the sight, and neither were her escorts._

 _Tanya sighed and shoved her gun back in her holster. She pointed at two burly cadets. "You two, take Private Goldenrod to the sergeant. He'll deal with this idiot."_

 _The private didn't even struggle as the two helped lift him up and take him to a nearby building. Tanya took a deep breath and turned._

 _Everyone was watching. All activity had ceased as they observed the scene._

 _Tanya glared at all of them. "What are you looking at? I want all of you to get down and give me 100, right now!" Go, go, go!"_

 _The escorts took Weiss into the building as activity initiated once more. "That was Second Lieutenant Degurechaff. The best soldier we've ever had. She's a bit of a favorite among the upper echelon. Something about her Semblance or whatever."_

 _Weiss turned, indignation on her face. "But she's just a child! What were you all thinking when you enlisted her into a military academy?!"_

 _The escort grimaced. He scratched his beard lightly. "Miss, it wasn't really our idea. And trust me, that 'child' has seen more death and destruction than I would ever care to see."_

 _Weiss fell silent. More death and destruction, huh? Maybe this girl was like her once. Wtinessing something traumatic. But the difference was this Tanya didn't look traumatized at all. It looked like she…accepted her situation and used it to her advantage. Weiss didn't know if that was impressive or frightening._

 _They finally stopped in front of a simple wooden door, with a golden plaque that said "Specialist Winter Schnee"._

 _The escort stood by the door with his arms crossed. "We're here. I'll wait outside. Take as much time as you need in there, I heard it's been a while since you met your sister."_

 _Weiss nodded, her attention solely fixated on the door. Her sister was just there. Just beyond a flimsy door. Weiss straightened her hair out and smoothed her clothing. She took a deep breath. Now or never!_

 _She gave a hesitant knock. Several seconds passed. "Come in."_

 _Weiss's trembling hand reached for the doorknob and turned._

 _The first thing she noticed was the room itself. It was very plain, completely unlike the lavish lifestyle she led before. The only decorative materials were a painting on the wall and some fresh flowers on a nearby shelf, no doubt from some of Winter's secret admirers._

 _And then there was…Winter. Looking exactly as she did years ago. If Weiss didn't know any better, she would have thought he woman sitting across from her was Mother. They had a striking resemblance other than the wrinkles._

 _Winter smiled softly as she slowly stood up. "Weiss…It's good to see you again."_

 _Weiss couldn't help it. She dropped all qualms about looking professional and rushed into her sister's open arms._

 _Winter blinked in surprise as Weiss seemingly reverted back into a child, but smiled and hugged her sister back. For a while, the room was silent as Weiss struggled not to burst into tears._

 _Weiss sniffled. "It's good to see you too, Winter…" she choked out._

 _"_ _I gather Whitley doesn't share your enthusiasm?" Winter joked._

 _Weiss sighed. "No, he's busy entertaining Father at the moment. He's always been enthusiastic to please him."_

 _Winter nodded. She gestured towards the empty chair in front of her desk._

 _Weiss gratefully sat down. She brushed a hand across one of the framed photos on her desk. There were several, including one about Winter graduating the academy, but what caught her attention was a photo containing a smiling family. Their family._

 _A beaming Weiss sat on the lap of an equally smiling Mother. Father stood off to the side, stoic, but eyes twinkling with mirth. Whitley was still a baby at that point, so he was snoozing away. Winter stood next to Father with a smile. This was taken before the incident. Before everything took a turn for the worst._

 _Winter noticed as she poured some hot coffee for the two of them. "Bring back memories?" asked Winter with a bittersweet smile. "I remember that day. You refused to let the maids make your hair and threw a fit. Mother had to come along and do it herself."_

 _Weiss smiled nostalgically. "Yeah…"_

 _Winter wordlessly handed over a mug of steaming coffee. One sugar and some cream. Just how she liked it. Weiss muttered a quick thank you and they sat their coffee in silence, enjoying the atmosphere between them._

 _Winter set her mug down and clasped her hands together. "I hope you've been doing well. I'm sorry for my absence in Schnee Manor. I hope you don't hate me for it."_

 _Weiss blustered. "Oh, no, why would I ever hate you? I mean, you're my sister! And I haven't seen you in so long, so I wouldn't even know where to begin! I know you were changed after what happened, but I don't blame you for it! I mean-"_

 _Winter laughed, snapping Weiss out of her state. Weiss pouted. "Winter, it's been years, you can't do this to me!"_

 _"_ _Excuse me? Last I checked, I was the older sister, and you were not."_

 _They fell into sisterly antics, simply enjoying each other's company. Weiss was happier than she had felt in years. Growing up in a lonely mansion after Winter's departure was tough. Father grew colder and harsher, and Whitley, not having a positive figure in his life, copied his behavior, becoming more like Father day by day._

 _But Winter was still the same. Still acted the same. And this was the sense of normality Weiss needed. She craved it._

 _Weiss sipped her coffee once more. "Oh, by the way, I think something might be wrong with how the military is handling things."_

 _Winter raised an eyebrow as she poured more coffee. "Oh? In what way?"_

 _"_ _Several, actually. For one, is it normal for a CO to hit a student?"_

 _Winter smiled slightly. "You may not like it so much, but it's normal. Atlas is tough, as you well know, and if a student can't handle a couple beatings, then he can't survive in the future."_

 _Weiss huffed. "I guess. But in what way does that warrant a child to be a CO here?"_

 _Winter's hand stiffened, sending the once steady stream of coffee into a jittery line. Weiss, unperturbed, barreled on. "I mean, child soldiers. I know you were young when you entered the military, but that was as soon as you turned 15. This girl couldn't have been more than 11!"_

 _"_ _I suppose you are asking about Second Lieutenant Degurechaff, correct?"_

 _Weiss raised an eyebrow this time. "How did you know?"_

 _Winter grimaced and set down her coffee mug. "Just a hunch. Also the fact that she's the only child soldier here. But don't misunderstand. She may have the body of a child, but her real side is ruthless. I have seen her nearly kill several students because they pulled an elaborate prank on her."_

 _Weiss sat still, intrigued and fixated on her sister's face with horror. "Still, how is she in such high rank this young? Is it because of her Semblance?"_

 _Winter nodded. "Her Semblance allows her to turn any projectile into a bomb. The more Aura she puts into the projectile, the more powerful the explosion will be. Which is why the military is interested in her. Just because she is lucky enough to have such a powerful Semblance."_

 _Weiss set her cup down. "I'm guessing you don't have much of a good relationship with her?"_

 _"_ _You have no idea. I was recently nominated to receive the Atlas Medal of Bravery. But they also nominated Degurechaff. And I refuse to let an 11 year old take one of the highest honors one could get in this army."_

 _She turned to Weiss. "And don't be fooled by her behavior. She acts polite and courteous to people of higher rank, but on the inside, she just wants to get to the top. Live a cushy life and send others to do all the dirty work."_

 _Winter grasped her younger sister's hand warmly and smiled. "Don't worry. I hear you have been accepted into Beacon Academy. Which is quite far from here. There is little to no chance Degurechaff can come there. And far away from home."_

 _Weiss smiled back and gripped Winter's hand. "For my sake, I hope so."_

 **[-]**

Weiss finished her story with a sigh. "Lo and behold, she is here, as a new professor in one of the most prestigious schools on Remnant."

She angrily speared a tomato and popped it into her mouth. The rest of the teens were silent. They were too busy digesting the true nature of Tanya Degurechaff. Sure, they knew that she was sadistic and cruel, but they didn't know to what extent. Now that they heard things from Weiss herself, who was haughty and was stronger than most, that she was dangerous, this gave them an idea of how much a piece of work their new professor was.

Ruby munched on her last cookie, having eaten it all during the entire story. "But how come Winter didn't tell you she was coming? Shouldn't she tell you any move Miss Degurechaff makes?"

Weiss shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe she was busy and didn't get the memo that the devil itself was coming to Beacon."

Jaune gave a hollow laugh. "So I'm guessing we have literally no chance of surviving this school now?"

Yang scoffed. "Come on. Okay, she might be a little scary, but there's no way an 11 year old girl can go toe to toe with any of us. Heck, if she tried to blow me up, all she's gonna get is a flaming fist to the face."

Weiss sighed. There was no convincing Yang until she actually got into a fight with the tiny girl.

The bell rang, signaling the beginning of morning classes. RWBY and JNPR jumped. So caught up in the story, they forgot to actually eat their food. Port was gonna punish them. Unless he was in the middle of one of his stories and didn't notice their absence.

They shoveled as much food into their mouths as they could and left the dishes on the table. Normally, Weiss wouldn't handle such behavior, but since they were late, they were forced to pass on more cleaning duties to the lunch ladies.

Ignoring the dirty looks from the staff, Teams RWBY and JNPR sprinted across the campus, desperate not to miss class.

"Remember," gasped Weiss, "Have some respect for Degurechaff. I may not like her as a person, but how she got up in ranks is impressive."

Yang scoffed once more. "Yeah, I'll show her some respect. In fact, I'll shove that respect right in her face."

Teams RWBY and JNPR sighed. There truly was no way to convince her.

 **[-]**

Tanya smiled slightly as her students shuffled in, no doubt dreading every moment in this class. Which was good. She found to her annoyance that most of these students have had sheltered lives, fighting only in arenas allowed by schools.

But they were not prepared for the struggles of real life. Which was why she was here. To get them used to it. And educated them on how to work with people who lived with it.

Cardin and his cronies swaggered in; all shooting angry glares at the blonde, which did not go unnoticed.

The last people to walk in were the members of Team RWBY and JNPR, who did their best not to make any unnecessary eye contact.

As the students all got situated and in their assigned seats, Tanya rose out of her chair and stepped to the front of the class, well aware of the many observant eyes tracking her every move.

She pulled out the holo-disk from yesterday and typed in the password. "How many of you all have at least a basic understanding of how the military operates?"

A majority of hands went up. "And I'm not talking about the trash they show on the CCT nowadays, I'm talking about real life military operations."

Many hands went down, with the exception of Weiss Schnee (unsurprisingly), Jaune Arc (surprisingly), and another random student.

The holo-disk hummed blue as it started to boot up. Tanya set it on the floor in front of her, ready to activate it at a moment's notice. "I'm not surprised, to be honest. Most of you have lived very stable lives in the Vale area. Only a few knows just how detailed military operations can be."

She paced around the classroom and picked up her Scroll, which would relay documents and pictures she would show to the class. "Which is why I am here. The Council has decided to create military studies class here, and specifically assigned me at this position. Now, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, seeing how I have developed a reputation here in the span of one day."

The class laughed nervously.

"When you all leave this class over the course of your stay at Beacon, you will have your heads brimming with every single tactic and method the military uses. If you don't, well I may have to beat it into you until you do."

The blonde scanned the classroom, which erupted into whispers. "And that means from now on, we will operate like a smaller version of the military," she yelled, "You refer to me as Professor Degurechaff or Second Lieutenant Degurechaff. Whichever is better for you."

The holo-disk activated, covering the room with complex holograms and several video feeds. The class oohed and awed, sending a small smile on Tanya's face.

"Now then…" Tanya swiped on her Scroll, revealing a PDF file of notes she was about to lecture on. "Class is in session."

 **[-]**

High above the clouds, a certain entity was watching from afar. It had been following his favorite toy's progress as she grew up.

Ever since that incident three years ago with the village, it had been keeping closer tabs on her than he would like to admit. But this was the most fun it had in a while. It was frustrating, yes, but it felt that the reward at the end of the long tunnel was well worth the struggle.

If Being X could smile, it would have. _"Now then…"_ it pondered, _"What should I do to make the game more interesting?"_

A spike of darkness bled through Being X's senses. It turned towards the source. It started to laugh.

Usually, it hated the idea of using dark forces to execute plans, but using it would no doubt make it interesting.

Being X laughed. _"I do not like the idea of using_ her _, but she would definently make things interesting for all of us."_

Soon, Tanya Degurechaff would be screaming for mercy, begging for it to save her. Praising it. Being saved by it. No force on Remnant could prevent that.

 _"_ _Let the games begin."_

 **[-]**

 **And I'm done for now. Sorry for the extra-long hiatus, I was just not really feeling it and I go lazy, hence the name.**

 **If I went too in detail with Weiss's past and didn't focus on Tanya's I apologize. I just wanted to set the scene for the future. I probably won't go into huge detail with a character for a while.**

 **And just to clarify, Weiss did not just spill out her entire life's story to her friends. She just told them the part about meeting Tanya for the first time and her meeting with Winter.**

 **If you all feel that there wasn't enough of that loli Hitler (before you rage, I am well aware that Hitler came to power right before WW2. This loli Hitler is a nickname for her) into this, I am sorry. I promise to write the next chapter more on her perspective in the next chapter.**

 **Next chapter may take a while though. I'm currently making another chapter for my other fic, so don't be mad if I update that one before this.**

 **So yea, thanks for reading guys, I appreciate it. Please feel free to drop a review of a follow/favorite. I always enjoy reading your guy's comments on my work. You're welcome to criticize me as much as you want on this.**

 **See you all later!**


	6. Chapter 6

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Youjo Senki or RWBY. They belong to their respectful owners.**

 **[-]**

Tanya stepped forward, clasping her hands behind her back. The holo-disk hummed evenly, distributing many notes and figures across the front of the room.

The students sitting at the front watched with rapt interest, all previous signs of dread gone. Ruby's eyes twinkled as she marveled at the technology of the disk. Weiss just sat warily, impressed by the display, but still nervous. Hopefully Tanya's teaching strategy would be less…painful than the ones she saw back at Atlas.

Tanya expertly guided a certain slide to full view with a couple dexterous twists and turns on her Scroll.

The slide showed an article about the Great War that happened around eighty years ago. Most of the class groaned. They were gonna learn some kick ass strategies used by the most powerful military in the world, but instead they were learning history?

"Quiet!" Tanya yelled, silencing all noise. "Now I understand most of you do not like history. Understandable, to be honest, I had always hated history myself."

"But. This is important to understand how we all developed such strategies in the first place. Before the War, we were divided, with no clear sense of strategy. The strongest force at the time was early Atlas, who used superior tactics to overpower the enemy. And that is what we'll be learning today."

She picked up a lone textbook on her desk. "If you look under the tables, you will find this textbook. I want you all to open it to page 56, chapter 1."

The grumbling teens reached down and set a textbook onto each of their desks. Weiss recognized this immediately. It was the same textbook her tutors had sometimes used in Schnee Manor, back when she was little.

Weiss smiled slightly. With her vast knowledge of the book, this class would be a piece of cake.

"Now it says in here, that the War took place eighty years ago and was then preceded by the Faunus Rights Revolution. You can skip over that, we're going straight to the next paragraph, where they actually talk about different strategies used by the different kingdoms at the time."

Everyone flipped their books a page and waited further instructions.

"Mr. Winchester, I would put that phone away if I were you."

Cardin looked up, his face dimly lit by the backdrop of his Scroll. "A what?"

Tanya bit her tongue. That was a dumb mistake. "It doesn't matter what. Put that Scroll away or I will be forced to confiscate it."

Cardin was about to argue until he saw Tanya's eyes, which flashed gold with annoyance. Cardin scoffed and shoved his Scroll back into his pocket. "There. Happy?"

The blonde nodded. "Very much so. Now pay attention or I will be forced to explain to Professor Goodwitch why you will be attending my form of detention instead of hers."

That shut Cardin up. Whatever form of detention that devil had in store would likely be ten times worse than whatever Goodwitch could dish out.

Tanya glared at the teen for a bit and turned back to the class, who had been watching with bated breath. It was very hard to look away from the scene, especially with Lieutenant Degurechaff threatening a student. It was like watching a car accident: you just couldn't look away.

Tanya sighed silently. This was why she hated teenagers. Always rebellious with no respect for elders or people of higher rank. God knows she had to deal enough of that back at Japan and Atlas.

"Anyway, who can tell me without looking at the book how the first battle of the Great War started?"

Weiss raised her hand immediately. She may have not liked the little girl, but she still needed to do well in this class.

Tanya nodded. "Miss Schnee."

Weiss stood up, smoothing out her dress as she did so. She cleared her throat. "The battle all started when Mistral and Mantle had growing relations that rose tensions between the rest of the kingdoms. The first battle started when tensions kept rising and some settlers fought one another on Sanus, marking the beginning of the war."

Before the blonde could commend her for her answer, one unidentified student blurted out what most people were thinking. "That always got me. Why would people even fight each other? There are bigger problems out there. Like Grimm."

The rest of the class nodded. That made sense. Now humanity was peaceful and lived in relative harmony, all fighting together against the forces of Grimm. Fighting each other was a waste of time.

"Because, no matter the era, humanity will always find a way to fight again."

Blake bristled a bit. "What do you mean? Once all the Grimm are dead and there's no more threats, we should be living in peace again! There's no more reason to fight anymore!"

Tanya checked her nails. "Yes that would be ideal. Sadly, that is never the case. Remember what happened with the Faunus? The Faunus Rights Revolution? Humans and Faunus fought, even with the looming threat of Grimm right above them. People will always find a way to wage war with one another. No matter how peaceful the era."

The unidentified student raised his hand. "You don't know that. Maybe when we finally kill all the Grimm things will be different."

Every single war that occurred in Earth's history flashed through Tanya's mind. The Civil War in America. WW1 and WW2 in Europe. The Russo-Japanese War. The list went on and on.

The people of Remnant had no idea about the implications of their own humanity. Humans are naturally born to find differences and fight. It was just how they were. Hell, before she died, there was major fighting and bloodshed in the Middle East.

The blonde just stared back at the student. "That may be so. But problems like racism and hostile relations will always spark fighting, with or without Grimm."

That was a somber note. For a naïve Ruby, who completely believed that humanity could band together and live in complete peace, this was a huge blow to her beliefs.

Tanya spent a few moments in silence as students whispered to one another. She cleared her throat. "Enough of this. We need to get back to the lecture. In the future, I would hope you all will raise your hands before speaking."

She put the file about the Great War away and opened up another document. "Now, as all of you may know, Atlas was the leading expert in military strategies during Remnant's early history. While other Kingdoms used archaic swords and shields," Jaune shifted uncomfortably, "Atlas used brand new technologies such as armor piercing crossbows to keep the enemy at bay."

She scrolled down. "At this time, Atlas, also known as Mantle, was allied with Mistral and we were on the brink of conquering Vale. If Vacuo hadn't joined in, Vale would have been long taken over."

"The Great War finally ended in the Vacuo campaign, where Mistral and Mantle both sought to destroy supplies. The King of Vale at the time joined with Vacuo and successfully pushed us back. There are some scholars arguing that Vacuo's weather was responsible for causing most damage to the opposite side. Also combined with the fact that Mantle did not know how to deal with desert terrain at the time."

The class nodded. Most of them knew students from the desert Kingdom of Vacuo. They had always heard that it was cruel and unforgiving, with tons of Elder Grimm on the loose. The citizens of Vacuo had it tough, but that only made them stronger in the long run.

"But, I digress. For now, we will be learning about early strategies used mainly by Mantle and the other Kingdoms. Turn to the next chapter."

As the class flipped, Blake had no choice but to feel slightly impressed. Tanya was handling this class very well. She knew about history and had a broad knowledge of the many strategies used by soldiers.

It was a far cry from liking the blonde as a person, but she was a top soldier, nonetheless. She now knew why Atlas had so much interest in her.

Tanya opened up another file, this time with a multitude of charts and graphs on it. "Before we start, I would like to explain something to all of you."

The class trained their eyes on hers, all rapt with attention. Even Cardin looked on with mild interest.

"In real life, strategies are not enough to win a fight. Just relying on tactics alone will not allow you to succeed. Learn about their art."

Students started to whisper in confusion. Art? What?

Yang almost smirked. "Art?" she whispered to her teammates. "This is a military class, not some third grade painting program."

Tanya straightened. "Silence!"

The class shut up.

"What did I say about raising your hand to talk? Do not force me to enforce some punishments in this class. While I may not be able to use punishments regularly used in Atlas, I still have very fitting ones that were passed by the Council."

The blonde stalked around the class, making sure to make eye contact with everyone there. "Learn about the art, class. When you understand an enemy's art, you understand the enemy."

Weiss grudgingly agreed. She learned a looser version of that quote from her fencing instructor back at Atlas. To understand the enemy, you must first understand who they were and what they stood for. That rule applied for every single being on this planet. The White Fang hated humans; they preached about the eradication of the human race sometimes. And understanding that would help her in fighting against them in the future.

"Understand?" Tanya said as she gazed across the sea of heads.

The students nodded, and she swore she heard somebody say "Yes Ma'am" in the back row somewhere.

"Good. Now back to the subject at hand. This year, I will be teaching offensive and defensive strategies throughout the course of the two semesters we have. First semester will be offensive and second will be defensive. I advise you all take extensive notes for each of them, as there will be a large final at the end of each semester."

The blonde pulled up the file she had on her Scroll. "Today we're only going to cover three to get the hang of things."

Most of the class pulled out their notebooks while some secretly took out their Scrolls to photograph the notes. Personally, Tanya didn't care what they did. As long as they had the notes somewhere on their person was good enough for her. The slackers that didn't pay attention would pay for it. Some of them would pay for it very soon.

"First of the three strategies we will be learning today is the concept of air superiority. Atlas excels at this, with state of the art ships and weaponry. A single charged cannon strike is enough to take down a fully grown Nevermore."

To demonstrate, she pulled up a video of a test run of such ships in a recent attack against a nest of Nevermores straying too close to Atlas. General Ironwood had authorized the use of such videos in class, as long as she didn't show anything too confidential.

The class observed as a medium sized ship blasted across the sky, heading closer to a screeching black object.

They heard the speakers on the disk humming as the cannon in the video powered up. In just a few seconds, the cannon reached full charge and discharged a single shell of highly concentrated Dust at the Grimm.

The bird had barely enough time to screech as the round tore through its body, blowing it into a fine dust.

Tanya closed the file as students started to write down notes. "Now when an enemy has no chance of taking to the air, they become stranded. The main mode of transferring supplies to them is by air. And when we take that away, it is only a matter of time before they are without resources."

She chuckled. "God knows how many times I have seen this used in the military."

Blake bristled slightly at this. Yes, she knew full and well how the military used this strategy. The White Fang headquarters in Atlas had it tough. With Atlas having superior firepower in the skies, the Faunus couldn't get enough supplies from other sectors.

And many of the supply runs that involved air travel usually ended in disaster. They had to take smaller ships or trek the dangerous Grimm-infested routes to send over resources.

There was one incident Blake remembered. The Fang once made a stupid decision to take the fight to the skies. They had mustered all the ships they could to take down parts of Atlas controlled airspace.

It was a disaster. Unfortunately for the Fang, Atlas was testing out several new weapons at the time. They were decimated.

It also seemed Tanya was alive and well in the campaign. The blonde was reported to have been shooting down several smaller ships with the combinations of Lightning Dust and her Semblance. If the explosion didn't kill the crew, the EMP effect that sent the ship crashing to the icy ground did.

Even the ones that retreated were shot down and killed. The blonde left no survivors.

"Next is blockade. This is similar to air superiority, except it mainly takes place on the ground and sea. This was used several times in the Great War when Atlas wanted to choke the supply of resources from smaller islands surrounding the kingdoms.

To emphasize, Tanya pulled up several pictures of ships and ground troops surrounding a large area, attacking any supply ship that came close.

"Now there are several different steps to blockade. It isn't simply surrounding the enemy with as many soldiers as you can. It is far more complex than that. You need to read the enemy. Realistically, this would take several weeks or even months of careful spying. For example, if you choose the wrong day to blockade, you can expect to be taken down by reinforcements who were scheduled to come by that exact same day. Come when the enemy has a moderate amount of supplies. Build up from there and then you'll be strong enough to stop reinforcements."

Pyrrha raised her hand. "Professor, how exactly is this different from siege warfare?"

Tanya pointed at her with approval. "Very good question, Miss Nikos. Not many people would have caught onto that."

Pyrrha smiled slightly. It was always nice to get praise, although she was far too modest to admit it.

"And to answer your question, blockades cannot be confused with siege warfare, as blockading is usually directed at a region or kingdom, rather than being directed at a castle or a fort."

Ruby frantically scribbled down notes as the Lieutenant droned on. She didn't particularly like this class so far. It was too much of an assault on her ideals. War was bad. But she did need to pass this class. And they did have to work with military branches at some point in life.

"And lastly is decapitation. This is one of the most powerful strategies by far. The problem is that it is often too hard to execute. This involves in taking down the enemy's chain of command and leaders. This often includes assassination or bombing runs."

"In fact, Atlas had tried to use this strategy against the King of Vale during the War. It was almost successful, but the King was too shrewd to fall for a trick like a poisoned drink."

She stalked around the classroom. "If this had succeeded, however, Vale would have been completely helpless. A nation is nothing without a leader. They would be paralyzed. Easy pickings for the rest of the battle."

"Off the top of my head, I can list several instances where the Kingdoms have taken down many different captains and generals during the war. Because of this some battles were lost and some were won. Depending on how influential the leader of the group was, the more the group would be thrown into disarray."

The class started to whisper a bit. Good thing the leaders weren't in charge of such a large group. They would learn sooner or later that a leader being unable to lead anymore would not be such a large hit to the teams, as they would soon realize that they worked well together and will work around the problem.

Tanya suddenly shut off her Scroll. Team RWBY looked confused. That entire lecture took only forty minutes! What were they going to do with the remainder of the class?

The professor walked to the door. "I want all of you to meet me in the training area near the forest. Bring your weapons and combat clothing. I will continue class there."

The door clicked as she shut the door. The class was silent for a few moments until one student broke the spell by hastily shoving her belongings into her bag. The rest of the students followed suit.

Weiss was the first to stand, putting her notebook and pencil into her bag. "Come on, I don't wish to be late to Degurechaff's class again."

Ruby scoffed lightly. "Yup, you can say that again…My arms still hurt from carrying all those books."

"Really? How I remember it is you complaining about the weight and leaving me with no choice but to do it on my own."

"But Weeeiiiissssss! You have your magic thingy to help you with carrying them!"

"My Semblance is not used for menial things like labor work."

Ruby smirked. "Oh yeah? I swear I saw you use your Semblance at one point to reach a book in the library."

Weiss blushed. "Y-You saw that?"

The speedster tackled the heiress and nuzzled her face. "Oh, poor wittle Weissy, forced to use your Semblance to help you reach tall things."

While Weiss desperately tried to extricate herself from the excitable brunette, Yang was busy talking with Blake.

"What's she making us go outside for? If it's gonna be anything like yesterday, I'm gonna punch her face in." Yang said, shoving her books into her bag.

Blake sighed. "Yang as Weiss said before, don't try and create trouble with Degurechaff. You'll regret it."

"Come on. So what, she could blow stuff up with her bullets, but that's it. What could she do without a gun, huh? Stab me with that knife of hers?"

"I don't know and I don't wish to find out exactly what she could do. Getting on her bad side would just be worse for you. She's dangerous. You felt it, didn't you? Back at the cliffs?"

Yang fell silent at that. Yeah, she felt it. Yesterday when Yang tried to stare down the smaller girl, she felt something strange.

While her own eyes were burning with arrogance and anger, the other blonde's eyes burned with a seething cold. Like the eyes of a predator.

Add some crimson bloodlust into the mix and Yang would have seen the eyes of a Grimm.

What Yang was pulling right now was false bravado. She had some people convinced that she wasn't scared of the tiny blonde, but Blake knew better.

Yang was terrified of Degurechaff. Terrified of those cold eyes of hers. The eyes of a killer.

 **[-]**

"Come in, HQ. This is Operator 25 approaching target along with Operator 13, please advise."

 _"_ _Hearing loud and clear, 25. Just observe and record the target, do not engage."_

"Affirmative. It seems that the target is waiting at the edge of the forest for someone. So far, no hostile movements or anything to indicate that she has seen us."

 _"_ _Understood, 25. Keep observing until further notice. And make sure 13 does the same."_

"Yes sir. Do you want us to record what she does next?"

 _"_ _Yes, but do not get too close. Maintain current distance. We are going dark for a while, a communications Bullhead is getting between us. We will be back with you shortly."_

"Affirmative. Glory to the Fang."

 _"_ _Glory to the Fang."_

 **[-]**

Tanya lazily flicked a stray bug that had landed on her shoulder. She glanced up at the sky, allowing herself a moment to enjoy the cool breeze and warm sun.

She felt a little disappointed in herself. Her first lesson was a little short of what she had hoped, and she expected it to be more informative.

Eh, she'll burn that bridge when she got there. She was never that good at teaching in a classroom. She relied on a more…hands-on approach, graciously allowed by the Headmaster. As long as she didn't cause any lasting damage to a student, she was fine.

But she did mean what she said. About the art. Tanya spent a good portion about her time at the Academy on the many different types of enemies she had to face.

The Grimm were easy. They were mindless creatures that had no clear sense of tactics and relied on brute force and numbers to overpower their enemies.

But people and Faunus were harder.

Which was why she studied mostly about the White Fang. She needed to protect herself from future threats, after all.

Apparently they started off peaceful but grew violent when that didn't work. A pity. If they had kept pressing on with their peaceful methods, they would have eventually achieved equality. Martin Luther King Jr. did the same and achieved peace in America, after all.

But no, they had to go with the terrorist route and start bombing everyone, making Tanya's life that much harder and dangerous.

Sometimes she would wonder why she didn't pursue a safer career, like a doctor or something, but she would always bring up the counterargument: what if a disaster occurs? What if the Grimm attack? What if the White Fang bombs the exact place she's living in?

The dangers were endless. And she was born with an extremely potent Aura and "blessed" by Being X with a powerful Semblance. It would be a waste not to use them.

But at the same time, it was too dangerous to go pursue being a Huntress. No, it was better to stay in the military and rise to the top, giving orders while she stayed nice and safe.

A loud clamor of voices and weapons grabbed her attention. It seemed the students finally decided to show up. Perfect timing too. She was getting impatient.

She glanced at her small wristwatch as the students stood in a rough semicircle.

"Good timing. A little too close to being late, but you all made it on time."

She folded her arms together. "Alright, I do hope all of you remember the lecture. Because we will be putting it into practice. Right now."

The class murmured with confusion. Already practicing tactics so soon? They literally just walked out of the classroom twenty minutes ago.

"I have received permission from Headmaster Ozpin to allow use of this small section of the forest for the remainder of the year. From now on, I will be teaching you all the basics of each strategy used by the military and put them into practice here."

A lone student raised his hand. "But Professor Degurechaff, does that mean we have to meet here every single day?"

"You will be here for most days, not all," replied the blonde, "But that's because some of these tactics are more…destructive than most, so we are not authorized to put them in practice."

Flashes of bombing runs with huge Bullheads went through everyone's mind. They shivered. Yeah, it would be better to go with learning strategies they could actually go through without it starting to become illegal.

Tanya pulled out her Scroll. "So I only taught you all three tactics today, two of which are fairly difficult to pull off. But the military rarely uses those unless it's a time of war, so we will be focusing on decapitation only."

She held up the screen to show the sectioned off area of the forest, roughly covering the length of 6 kilometers and a width of about 3 kilometers. The entire forest was filled with trees and a few splatters of boulders and small hills in the mix. A thin river cut through the area.

"So your job is this: I will be the leader of the enemy you are trying to subdue. Remember; without a leader, a large group of enemy forces will be thrown into chaos. Which is why the leader of the White Fang stays hidden all the time."

She shut off her Scroll and picked up her rifle and some spare ammunition propped up against a boulder. She idly checked her gun for any marks or jams, even though she checked thoroughly before her students got here. "So it will be all of you against me. You are allowed to use the full extent of your abilities, even Semblances."

Cardin and his cronies laughed a bit. Before they weren't allowed to fight back, only defend, a tactic that depended on quick thinking and wits, traits they didn't have. But now, they could actually hurt the little girl. With permission!

Blake gulped and clenched the handle of Gambol Shroud. While she would love nothing more than enacting revenge against the bane of the White Fang and the killer of most of her friends, she couldn't help but feel afraid. All of the class against only her! She had only a single rifle, some spare mags, and a simple Dust knife! This should be easy!

But when Tanya's piercing blue eyes rove over hers for a split second, she knew that things were in fact, not going to be very easy.

"The scenario is this: you recently stormed the enemy HQ and the leader is on the run. In this case, I am the leader, so you will have to take me down. But, at the same time, I will be picking you off, one by one. This is fairly common. Most leaders of criminal organizations are tough and not to be trifled with. Therefore, keep on your toes."

The tiny blonde turned and walked into the foliage, throwing one more comment behind her back. "You can use any strategy to flush me out. I will send a message to all of your Scrolls when I am ready. I will be heading towards the giant boulders in the north, to make things easier for you."

Several of the class opened up their Scrolls to pull up a map of the place. Sure enough, just a couple kilometers to the north were a large clump of boulders, resembling a miniature version of a mountain range.

They steeled themselves and gripped their weapons tightly. Ok, they had an objective. Even if this was their first time handling such militaristic strategies, it should be fairly easy. Again, it was all of them against a little girl.

Then she smiled. "Remember. I'm not a simple soldier."

To emphasize, she flashed a silver badge. "This is one of the highest medals you can ever grant to a member of the military."

She smiled. "Good luck."

Then she was gone; the only indication of her departure was the slightly shaking bushes she stepped through.

The students were silent for a bit before splitting off into their own groups, whispering amongst themselves, lest the blonde could still hear them.

Teams RWBY and JNPR huddled together. "Is she crazy or what?" whispered Jaune, "I mean, she can't hold off forty students on her own, can she?"

The rest of the group muttered. Yes, it would be extremely difficult for one with Tanya's size to take down trained teenagers. She was just a gifted soldier with a single gun and knife.

Ruby noticed Weiss next to her shivering slightly. "S-She can't, right, Weiss?"

Weiss snapped out of her flashbacks and looked up at the concerned faces of the group. She gulped. "Winter once told me a story. A year ago, Degurechaff was in charge of a small group of cadets on their first mission to take down a fairly small camp of White Fang members."

"But, the camp was larger than expected, and Degurechaff ordered a retreat, sending all of her troops ahead of her while she defended herself against twenty trained enemies."

Weiss took a breath. "The cadets called for backup and the entire area was stormed in a matter of minutes. But when the reinforcements arrived, they found Degurechaff, completely surrounded by corpses. She didn't even look injured, although she suffered minor cuts and a concussion."

"But she obviously won with her Semblance. That would have made things easier for her, right?" Yang asked.

"That's the thing. Her gun jammed in the middle of the fight. She took down all of them with only her knife."

The group fell silent. Even Nora quieted down, the full weight of the situation finally coming down on her.

Pyrrha laughed nervously. "Well at least this isn't real life. We're governed by things like rules and guidelines and not…well, murder."

All of their Scrolls vibrated at the same time, causing every student to jump a little. On the Scroll was a single message. _Begin._

As one, all of the students trudged into the foliage, every single one of them on high alert.

Most were feeling pretty cocky. Before, they had been forced to run, unsure if they were allowed to fire back at the professor.

But now, she literally gave them permission to do so! Now that they had their weapons and were at peak efficiency, the students grew more confident with each step.

Other than teams RWBY and JNPR, all the students were fairly sure they could handle one girl.

Gifted soldier she may be, but there was no way that she could best budding Hunters and Huntresses.

 **[-]**

"25 to HQ, it seems the Devil has entered the forest and is converging on our location. Although it looks like she didn't see us, I think it would be better for us to move back a bit. Requesting permission to retreat for now?"

 _"…"_

"HQ? Come in."

 _"…"_

"Damn, coms must be down still. Hey, 13, you think we should move back a bit?"

"I would think so. As long as we don't make too much noise and stay down, we should be safe. I think HQ would understand."

"Understood. Let's head towards those boulders on your five. We should be able to take shelter there."

"Affirmative."

 **[-]**

Ozpin narrowed his eyes as he stared down at his Scroll. He idly picked up a mug of fresh coffee, letting the drink satiate his throat.

On the Scroll were what appeared to be two blips on the screen heading towards a pile of boulders in the northeast sector of the area where Degurechaff was having her class.

He didn't know what they were, to be honest. The blips avoided the cameras like the plague, and the only things they set off were the motion sensors. Which meant they weren't Grimm. Grimm wouldn't care about being caught on camera.

That meant they were humans. They sure as hell weren't civilians, as access was denied to this area. Not Huntsmen or Huntresses, as this was school property only.

So the only available option was the White Fang. Only they could operate at this level and use their heightened senses to avoid detection.

It couldn't have been anyone else, since they had no reason to spy on Degurechaff and her class in the first place.

Yes, he knew how much the extremist group hated Degurechaff. It was enough to dub her as "The Devil".

His fingers hovered over Glynda's contact. Just a single tap and class would be cancelled and the perpetrators would be found and brought in for questioning.

But he hesitated.

This posed a risk to the students, Ozpin was sure. But by the look of things, it seemed that the blips were just fine with observing. And while that was shady in itself, the blonde professor wasn't doing much other than teaching the students.

So there was no possibility of a breach in secrecy. If they were here to attack young Tanya, then they would have done so as soon as she stepped into the forest.

And he had full faith the blonde teacher and her students could handle such a threat. A dangerous gamble he was playing, but still interesting.

No, he was going to leave them be for now. They had no need to worry. Even experienced opponents were unwilling to go toe to toe with forty training Hunters and Huntresses and a decorated soldier of the Atlas Military.

The Scroll buzzed slightly, indicating a call. He picked the Scroll up and answered. "Yes?"

 _"_ _Headmaster, there's a woman here to see you, she says it's urgent."_ his secretary said.

Ozpin rubbed his nose. "Unless she has an appointment with me, I'm afraid you're going to have to turn her away. I'm fairly busy at the moment."

The secretary left the receiver for a bit, and Ozpin could hear some conversation on the other side.

 _"_ _Sir, she says she's from Atlas. I'm holding a letter right now. It looks like it's from General Ironwood."_

He perked up at this. Normally Ironwood wouldn't use regular mail, as it was often slow and unsafe. That meant whatever this was, it was important.

"Alright, send her up for me please."

He shut off his Scroll and took another sip of coffee. What on Remnant could the Good General want this time? He remembered how passionate he was during the conferences pertaining to Degurechaff attending his school. He had been insistent on Ozpin letting her in as a student, as it was a little too dangerous with White Fang activity in the area increasing.

He was also backed by the Council, who had noted her powerful abilities and wanted to keep her somewhere safe. Also to watch her.

Ozpin sighed. If the General sent another child soldier to attend his school, he was going to lose some sleep at night and suffer the complaints of dear Glynda.

The elevator doors across from him chimed and slid open.

Ozpin raised his eyebrows. Good, not a child soldier. It seemed to be another one of Ironwood's soldiers. He noted the stripes on the woman's uniform. A Second Lieutenant.

"Can I help you?"

 **[-]**

Ruby jumped as her sister stepped on a particularly thick twig, sending a dull snap echoing through the forest.

Yang grinned sheepishly as the rest of their group stared at her. "Sorry."

Blake rolled her eyes. There was honestly no real point in being stealthy. After all, they stood out like a clown in a funeral. With their multicolored clothes and clanking weapons, they were a beacon for anyone observing.

She was glad for her dark clothes and wieldy weapon. While weapons like Ruby's Crescent Rose was powerful, it was often too loud and destructive.

Actually, the only other stealth person in their group was Ren. That boy barely made any noise, unlike Nora, who was busy chattering about pancakes or something.

Ruby, Jaune, and Pyrrha helped with clearing any foliage ahead of them, basically scouting the area first.

Weiss, Yang, and Nora hung out in the middle, ready to assist when necessary.

Ren and Blake stayed in the back, making sure nobody suck up on them. If Degurechaff got behind them, it was over.

Every single group in the class had split up, insisting that they had a better chance of finding Degurechaff if they did so.

Blake wasn't completely sure about that, but she had to admit it did come with benefits. She didn't know much about large scale strategies, but she did know that smaller groups meant harder pickings, as they were usually more mobile.

Larger groups just had more of a chance to get picked off one by one before they had a chance to react.

But she couldn't help but shake off the dread she felt. As a cat Faunus, she was more sensitive to certain things. She had read somewhere that animal's usually sensed disaster before they happened, like a dog barking and whining before an earthquake struck.

She hated to compare herself to a dog, but she felt like one now.

Ruby sliced through a couple vines to reveal a welcome sight.

In front of her was the river that showed up on the map in their hands. That was good. That meant that they could wait here and gather their bearings in a familiar area.

She glanced over her shoulder and holstered her beloved weapon. "Hey, I found the river!"

The teams sighed in relief. Finally, some rest.

They stumbled onto the bank of the gurgling river and basked in the sunlight. Unlike the Emerald Forest, this area was sectioned off for practice and there was no danger of Grimm attacking.

Pyrrha walked over to the river and cupped some water in her hands. She drank long and deeply, thankful for the cool water. She turned to the group. "We should all get some water in our system. We don't want fatigue to hit us."

Jaune easily complied, all but collapsing onto the sand to drink. He was by no means unfit, but carrying around a shield that weighed about twenty five pounds was tiring work.

As the group all bent over for water, Weiss was busy scanning the map. So far, they had traveled pretty far. She noted some large boulders near the stream. Those matched the ones on the map, so they were close to the east side of the area.

Approximately north of them, they could see several large boulders, high above the trees.

For a person the size of Tanya, the large cluster of rocks would be a good vantage point. It allowed full view of the forest.

The heiress checked her rapier. All of her Dust cartridges were completely filled. That was a welcome sight. She needed as much of it as possible to stand a chance against the diminutive girl.

She felt Ruby plop down next to her. "So, Weissy, what now?"

Weiss gave up on trying convincing Ruby to stop calling her 'Weissy'. She tolerated it for now. "I think we should approach the boulders right there. There's no question that Degurechaff is there. It's the only place where she has a vantage point."

The rest of the members regrouped. Nora grinned and tightened her grip on her grenade launcher. "Well what are we waitin' for? Let's go blow it up!"

Ren sighed. "No, Nora, we are not blowing up the boulders. We want to subdue the professor, not severely wound her."

"Awwww, you're no fun, Ren…"

Pyrrha interrupted. "I think we should flank it. We should have RWBY creep up behind the boulders while we go head on. Since I have my Semblance to deflect the bullets, it should be us keeping her distracted and laying down fire."

They nodded. A solid plan. While Degurechaff was busy attacking JNPR, RWBY could go and attack from behind. It was a simple flanking maneuver. They had seen it on TV many times as children.

Jaune spoke up. "Alright, we'll try and keep her busy for five minutes, since I doubt we'll be able to hold her for longer. During that time, you guys should be able to get up there."

Ruby raised a hand. "Don't you think we should contact the other team's first? It would be better if we all grouped up on her."

Ren shook his head. "That would be unwise. There is strength in numbers, yes, but other than our teams, we have no experience colluding with the other teams. They would just get in the way. It will be chaos."

A loud boom caught their attentions. They all looked up; just in time to see a streak of golden light crackling with energy fly above them. It hit somewhere in the west, creating a dome of electricity that could be seen from the trees.

They heard screaming and yelling that sounded suspiciously like Cardin's team and a couple others.

"But still, I have a feeling; even with eight of us, I think we'll have some problems taking her down."

Blake scratched out a rudimentary map of the boulders. She didn't need a reminder that Tanya was capable of such destruction, thank you very much. She used a twig to carve out some shapes in the sand. "Not if we disarm her first. Experienced she may be, but take away her weapon and she's vulnerable. All we need is a good enough distraction."

She turned to the heiress. "Do you have some Gravity Dust handy?"

The white-haired girl smirked. "Of course I do."

She pulled out a vial of blackish purple Dust. "Just try not to use it all. It's expensive enough as it is."

Blake smiled slightly. "Noted. Equip that in the rapier for now. I'll tell you exactly what to do with it on the way there."

Yang smiled and cracked her knuckles. "Alright, what are we waiting for? Let's go kick some professor butt!"

 **[-]**

Tanya hummed slightly as she scanned the tree line with the scope of her gun.

Unlike many of her fellow officers and cadets, she didn't have a name for her trusty rifle. Everyone at the academy had named their weapons, but she was the only one who had neglected to do so.

She didn't really feel like it, to be honest. It was stupid, building up such a strong relationship with an inanimate object to the point of naming it. She had no time for such things.

True, she might have some modicum of attachment to her gun, but it was still a weapon. Weapons could be replaced with better ones. The only reason she stuck to her outdated rifle was because it fit for her, both the size and practicality.

Seeing nothing alarming, she stowed away her weapon and pulled out a flask of water. She took a long, hearty gulp of water.

Even if it looked calm, she knew some students were out there. Planning on how to take her down.

She settled down on top of a small rock, shaded overhead by a large sheet of granite, effectively blocking the outside from seeing in. It was a perfect reconnaissance spot that hid her and allowed full view of the entire forest.

She scanned her Scroll. This time, she neglected to use the camera feed. It was a tiny bit like cheating, and they were trying to recreate an accurate version of a decapitation scenario.

She flipped through the rosters and teams in her class. There were forty students in her class, which meant there were ten teams of four students.

Most of her students were pretty normal. No defining features, no special weapons, basic Semblance's, and no outstanding background with the exception of a few individuals.

She scrolled past team Cardin. She didn't need to do a background check on them. She already knew all she needed to know. She knew they were disjointed, racist, and relied heavily on the foolish antics of their leader.

She settled on the profiles of Team JNPR. Surprisingly, the leader of this crew was none other than Jaune Arc, and individual she knew as the son of the prestigious Arc family. Other than his impressive family background, he had no defining features. And his transcripts made no sense. He kept jumping from one school to another. And idiot could tell that this was faked.

But since Ozpin said nothing about it, she decided not to. Maybe there was a reason he was allowed to stay.

But honestly, she couldn't see why this boy was leadership material. He was extremely outshined by Miss Pyrrha Nikos, the four time Mistral regional tournament champion. This gained her the title of "The Invincible Girl". If she was headmaster, she would assign her to be leader with no hesitation.

Of course, there was the issue of making a color themed name for them.

Next was Nora Valkyrie. Background was surprisingly empty. She only had her personal information on their and the schools she attended. She had no family members, no birthplace, no nothing.

Same with Lie Ren, although his was a little more fleshed out than Miss Valkyrie's. Apparently they attended the same school together and stuck with each other for years. He was from a village that had been destroyed long ago, and his parents were written down as deceased.

An interesting group of individuals. She would have to keep an eye on them.

But more interesting was Team RWBY, led by the child prodigy, Ruby Rose.

Ruby Rose was a half-sister to Yang Xiao Long. She was allowed into Beacon several years earlier than her other friends, granted by Headmaster Ozpin.

She had caught his eye by taking down several thugs robbing a Dust store. What interested Tanya the most was her weapon. It was an extremely complex mechashift that melded together a scythe and a high-impact sniper rifle. Effective, yes, but unwieldy in many situations that relied on tight quarters fighting.

Next was young Miss Weiss Schnee. Daughter of Jacques Schnee, the head of the Schnee Dust Corporation. The blonde's blue eyes narrowed. She would have to keep her eyes on this one.

It was obvious she was the little sister to Tanya's so-called arch nemesis, Specialist Winter Schnee.

It was no secret that Winter didn't enjoy Tanya's presence. She hated Tanya since day one, often voicing opposition on letting a child take part in military excursions, even with her powerful Semblance.

And Tanya wasn't entirely sure Winter had forgiven her for "stealing" the medal from her.

Next was Blake Belladonna. Right away, she figured out she was a Faunus. It was painfully obvious. From the way she composed herself and covered those ears of hers with that giant bow. She even saw it twitch a few times in class today.

How nobody figured out about her heritage was beyond her.

But there was also something else. She was pretty sure young Belladonna knew her. She wasn't that liked among Faunus groups, after all. Some Faunus were White Fang sympathizers. And while they didn't support them upright, they silently cheered on from the shadows. Maybe she had killed one of Blake's friends in the past.

Nevertheless, she would keep on her toes around the raven-haired teen. If she was a radical, she would have to be detained immediately. If she was just a normal student who just happened to not like her, then Tanya could relax a little. She had enough on her plate already.

And lastly was Yang Xiao Long. Extremely volatile and drew strength by absorbing the kinetic energy of opponent's attacks and using it to make her punches stronger.

While it was useful, it didn't take a genius to figure out Yang had a very short fuse. Past accounts from the Vale Police Department were enough to confirm that. She was strong, but hot-headed and rushed into battle without restraint.

That wouldn't be good for Tanya. She was supposed to teach her students to keep a cool head and apply strategies to any situation. Many of these strategies required a cool head. The only counter-argument that came to her mind was the destruction German troops wrought in WW2 using Blitzkrieg. That tactic would be perfect for Miss Xiao Long, but it was not something the Atlas military used at all, since that strategy was coined by the Germans only on her old world.

All in all, these two teams were the more interesting out of her class. It would be unwise to underestimate them. They were inexperienced, yes, but they had a lot of potential.

A flash of light glinting off something metallic tore her attention away from the Scroll. The blonde quickly set it down and picked up her rifle. She trained her eyes down the scope and scanned the horizon.

There it was. She felt a feral smile break across her porcelain face. Her favorite prey had finally decided to show themselves. And it seemed they had made some friends.

From this distance, she could see students of other teams arguing with the brutish leader of CRDL, who just sneered and gripped his mace. Obviously they were arguing about how stupid it was to allow Cardin to prance around in broad daylight, letting the sun gleam off his armor, making it a beacon for anyone looking.

She noticed some students glance nervously at the huge pile of boulders she was currently resting on. While they knew she was there, they could not see her. The large granite overhang blocked the light from shining off her scope.

It seemed they were going for a very basic flanking maneuver, trying to sneak up behind the small mountain pass.

But that had all been ruined the second Cardin decided to brazenly walk through an open field like nothing was wrong with the world.

Tanya fingered for a magazine of Electricity Dust rounds. Her hands settled on the familiar grip and she quickly snapped it in the rifle.

Honestly she was a bit disappointed. She knew it was a vain hope, but she had wanted to see the students group together and work together to take her down.

But so far, all she had seen were two or three teams working together, and that was it.

She understood their fears of a larger group. In all those TV shows she had seen at the village orphanage, they had always shown the military or teams moving in a huge group. And because of that, they were usually decimated and left to die.

But she knew better. While working in a large group held many difficulties and dangers, they were almost completely outweighed by the benefits. A well informed and effective group would have been able to deflect most of her attacks and storm the small mountain pass she was on with little problems.

She could list at least seven people in her class with defensive Semblances, including Miss Nikos's polarity and Miss Schnee's Glyphs.

Nothing was more effective than a cooperative group, after all.

Tanya shook her head. This was no time to think about this. She would address the issue later and explain to the students after class on how they could improve.

She aimed straight at her prey and felt the familiar hum or power thrumming through the gun. The barrel emitted a golden light. Her eyes followed suit, bleeding into a golden hue.

"Dear Lord almighty, grant me your power and wisdom as I praise your name for all eternity!"

She pulled the trigger, sending a single shot of energy at her targets. Even before the bullet reached the students, she could see them scrambling for safety. Team CRDL was the first to run, straight for the cover of the trees.

Sadly, they were outstripped by the lighter students, who reached the trees long before the heavily armored Cardin could.

As normal, the bullet hit them first, sending up the teams in a dome of electricity, effectively reducing their Aura's into the red zone.

Unfair she was using more powerful attacks on them, but life was unfair. The enemy didn't hold back. Their sole purpose was to get their opponents to stop fighting. Permanently.

She surveyed her work and grunted in appreciation. That was around three teams out of commission. All that was left were seven more, including Teams RWBY and JNPR.

She scanned the area once more. She adjusted the scope. There were some students aimlessly walking around some kilometers away. They obviously had no idea where she was, even though she stated she was heading towards the boulders to make it easier for them. Apparently some didn't listen.

A dull whining noise caught her attention and her sixth sense immediately kicked in.

In a flash, she grabbed her gear and dove to out from under the rocky overhang, just in time for it to be completely decimated in a plume of pink smoke.

She felt slivers of stone chip away at her Aura. She checked her Scroll. 92% Aura. Not as bad as she thought.

The blonde dove behind cover as several more dull whines were heard overhead. Explosions rocked the area as the entire cliff side was torn to shreds. Those grenades sure packed a punch.

Nora whooped with delight as she reloaded her beloved Magnhild. Standing next to her were Ren and Pyrrha, both aiming their weapons at the rocky barricade Tanya was hiding behind.

They made sure to keep their distance and have as much cover as possible. They didn't want to be caught up in one of her bullets, after all.

Tanya readied her rifle. It would be unwise to use Ice Dust to neutralize them. After all, magnetism usually worked better in cold environments, as the atoms grew more stable and less excited, allowing for easier access of the magnetic field. And that wasn't something she wanted while fighting against Pyrrha Nikos.

She opted to keep using her Electricity Dust rounds. The atoms were usually unstable, disrupting the magnetic field a bit. Perfect for dealing with them.

As soon as the barrage stopped, she rolled out from cover and fired several shots towards the teens. Everyone with the exception of Miss Valkyrie dove for cover. Tanya raised an eyebrow. What was she doing?

Nora smirked as she changed Magnhild into hammer form. She twirled the weapon as if it weighed less than a feather. She sprinted forward, slamming the bullets in midair, letting the discharge flow through the metal and into her body. The hum of electricity resonated in her arms, heightening senses and strength tenfold.

Once all the bullets were destroyed, she leaped a good ten feet in the air, bringing the hammer down in a devastating overhead swing, her smile still apparent on her face.

Tanya blinked in shock. This was a strange turn of events. Never in her life would she have expected the teen to have such a specific Semblance.

She smiled. But that wasn't enough to take her down.

Tanya gave a good leap of her own, using her Aura to bolster he legs as she hopped back several meters.

The hammer hit the ground not a second later, creating a large crater a good five meters wide.

Before the excitable teen had a chance to recover, Tanya had swapped out the Electricity rounds for Wind Dust. She lightly landed on a small boulder and fired several rounds straight at the torso, where most Aura would usually be concentrated at.

Wind Dust had useful properties. When fired, it would create a small gale of wind that was usually enough to force an opponent backwards. If the Dust was potent enough, it could be strong enough to rip a tree to shreds. Of course, Degurechaff didn't want to rip a student to shreds, so she carefully measured her Semblance to make it devastating but not fatal.

The rounds became less frequent but increasingly stronger as Tanya poured more of her Aura into her bullets. Poor Nora tried her best to deflect the bullets, but the wind became too much and she was sent tumbling back.

In a flash, Pyrrha and Ren rolled into view, weapons blazing. Pyrrha used Akuo to serve as portable cover while she fired rounds from Milo. Ren was close behind, sure to spray as many bullets as possible to keep the diminutive girl down.

Behind them was Jaune, who provided as extra support, using his broad shield to block any bullets. Together, they pushed against the Dust rounds slowly, but surely.

Tanya was slightly impressed when she heard Jaune yelling instructions. He may have faked his way in, but that boy had at least some basic knowledge about what to do and how to avoid the most damage.

Maybe there was still hope for him.

With a nod, both Jaune and Pyrrha split off, with Nora behind Jaune and Ren behind Pyrrha. All together, they lay fire from both sides, forcing Tanya to move back towards the cliff wall.

She grunted as a stray bullet grazed off her leg, shaving off some Aura. _Maybe it's time I should head towards cover. I'm too exposed._

She quickly swapped out the Wind Dust for Burn Dust, and shot several bullets near her feet, sending a plume of dust and shrapnel into the air, effectively clouding JNPR's view.

On her dash to the trees, Tanya picked up her small pack. It had most of her equipment in there, after all.

She heard yells of alarm from the teens as they realized that she was trying to escape.

Then she heard Mr. Arc yell. "If you guys are here, now would be a good time to start!"

The blonde felt a shadow overhead. She glanced up to see a screaming blonde girl with blazing hair crash down in front of her, blocking entry into the forest.

Yang stood up with a smirk. "Sorry Lieutenant, I'm not allowed to let you pass."

Degurechaff copied the teen's smirk with her own. "Oh? And I suppose you'll be enough to stop me?"

Yang scoffed. "Oh please, I can take you with a hand behind my back. I'm just here for a distraction."

It all happened in a blink of an eye. Suddenly, a black symbol appeared on the ground below her. The gravity suddenly increased exponentially, sending Tanya down to her knees. Her arms felt like lead bars, and her rifle weighed as much as a sandbag.

Yang was forced down too, but looked pleased about it. "Now!"

On top of a small hill stood Ruby, who had Crescent Rose in sniper mode. Hearing her sister's call, she trained the scope on the downed professor and pulled the trigger.

Tanya grunted as the powerful round hit against her shoulder, taking a good portion of her Aura off. She had to get out of this situation and quick! She never expected such good cohesion between Teams RWBY and JNPR!

Weiss and Blake appeared out of the corner of her eye, with Blake firing her pistol and Weiss with her rapier stabbed into the ground. Probably the source of all that Gravity Dust.

Despite the situation at hand, the blonde couldn't help but feel impressed. It was like the teams were two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together.

But nothing was without its weaknesses.

"Merciful Father, infuse me with your strength! Give me the power to retaliate as I preach your name to the heavens!"

The teens didn't really know what to make of this. Was she that desperate to start praying? She never struck them as the religious type.

But the thoughts evaporated as a golden field encompassed the tiny girl's body, who now moved as if nothing was wrong. She lifted her head, treating everyone to the sight of her blue eyes bleeding into gold and a savage smile cracking her face.

Blake was the first to recognize the danger. "Weiss! Move!"

Tanya quickly pulled out her pistol and shot several high powered shells at Weiss's feet, cracking the ground where the rapier was stabbed in and cancelling the connection.

The Dust infused Glyph sputtered and died. The lieutenant shot to her feet and jumped straight into the air, firing her gun as she went.

Nora, who's Aura was already low, was the first to go down under the surprise onslaught of the super powered girl.

Jaune was next, his clumsiness being his downfall as he tripped over his shield and opened himself up to Burn Dust eating through his Aura.

Ren, who had the smallest Aura pool out of all his teammates, was last, who tried his best to get to cover until his Aura was finally exhausted by chunks of rocks coughed up from the explosions hitting him.

Everyone else dove for cover, excluding Pyrrha, who ran towards her downed teammates.

Big mistake.

Tanya took immediate notice of this. The girl was loyal to her team to no end, it seemed. An admirable trait, but sometimes, it was important to take a step back and fight for the greater good.

But her feelings for her teammate's well-being overrode her common sense.

Pyrrha grunted as she felt the bullets hit her shield. She tucked in her body as much as possible, trying to make her way to her teammates.

Jaune stirred and groaned, bringing her attention onto him. "Oum, that hurts…"

"Jaune! Quick, grab Nora and-!"

"Look out!"

Pyrrha turned in a flash, trying to bring Akuo up to block whatever attack was coming.

Tanya smiled. Too slow.

She fired one high powered round of Burn Dust straight at Pyrrha's exposed back, sending the Mistral champion down with a huff, her Aura dropping into the red zone.

Team JNPR was down for the count.

A crack of sniper fire echoed through the forest. The blonde jumped to the side to avoid being hit again. That mechashift sure was something. Looking down at her Scroll, that single shot from earlier took off more than 10% of her Aura.

Using her Semblance for so long and getting hit repeatedly really took their toll on her. Continuing to use her Semblance would be detrimental to her.

Eyeing the teens warily, Tanya stowed her gun away and reached to grasp the handle of her knife.

Unlike her gun, using her knife would not activate her Semblance. It wasn't a projectile, after all. I mean, she could throw it, but she didn't really want to throw away her only close combat weapon.

Her knife wouldn't do much damage if she threw it either. It was a simple Dust knife, given to every officer in Atlas. It was pretty short, but to her, its size was that of a large dagger.

Close to the hilt was a small cylinder that was able to carry three different types of Dust. To activate it, all she had to do was to press a small trigger on the handle.

She gripped the knife harder and circled around her opponents.

Blake and Weiss had recovered and readied their weapons. Yang shakily stood up, her hair slowly burning and eyes flickering between lilac and crimson.

As usual, Miss Xiao Long made the first move, her fists blazing. She punched the air a couple times, sending blasts of shotgun shells straight at Degurechaff's face.

Tanya dodged around them with little difficulty. She thanked her small body size for being so flexible and hard to hit.

Yang slowly grew more frustrated as the tiny girl literally danced around the small explosions, her creepy smile still evident on her face. With a guttural roar, she leaped into the air and brought her fist down.

Tanya moved quickly. Right before the fist could cave her face in, she sidestepped and grabbed the arm in midair, wincing a bit as the flames burned her arm, taking some Aura with it.

She used Yang's own momentum against her and shoved her off to the side, sending her crashing into a boulder. As she did so, she raked the knife over the blonde's chest, making sure to get the point across that in a real fight; she would have been dead before she hit the ground.

Tanya huffed. This was a bit harder than she though. She wasn't sure whether to feel impressed or worried.

She noticed Blake and Weiss slowly starting to close in. Miss Rose in the back was in the middle or reloading while running over to her teammates. The blonde winced. Enough of this.

In a flash, Tanya pulled out her pistol again. Weiss, thinking it was an attack, held Blake back and summoned a glyph to block any bullets.

But the bullets never came.

At the same time, the soldier pulled out a spare Electricity Dust Crystal from her bag and threw it in the air. Instincts kicked in and all the teens' eyes were drawn to the thrown object. By the time they noticed what was going on, it would be too late.

Tanya averted her eyes and shot a single round into the crystal, creating a rudimentary flashbang. Crude, but effective.

Blake actually hissed a bit as her Faunus eyes reacted violently with the yellow light. Ruby, Weiss, and Yang simply winced the light hit them.

By the time they blinked the dots away from their vision, Degurechaff was gone.

Ruby was the first to recover, as she was the farthest away from the flashbang. "Where did she go?"

Yang stumbled to her feet, her back aching from that toss into the boulder. "I dunno, but I think she ran into the trees. She would get more cover there."

Team JNPR shakily stood up. They were fine, other than their Aura depletion, which meant they were out of commission. They knew that in real life, they would be dead instead of exhausted. And that terrified them. Their plan fell apart too easily. Granted, it was a half-baked plan, but the way they were taken down with such precision scared them. And the way that Degurechaff could adapt so fast to surprise events, like Nora's Semblance, shocked them.

"I wasn't the only one who heard that; right," Yang asked, "How she suddenly started to spout prayers and whatnot?"

Pyrrha nodded, her hand reaching up to straighten out her bronze circlet. "And how she suddenly powered up after doing so is no coincidence. Maybe her Semblance is tied to praying?"

Weiss scoffed. "But that doesn't make any sense! No Semblance relies upon incantations or anything of the like. I mean, I don't have to say anything to summon Glyphs, no matter how complex they may be. Some requires a large dose of concentration, but nothing needs to be spoken."

"Maybe how the Lieutenant concentrates on drawing her power is from prayer? Religion has been noted to calm down emotional or physical turmoil in a person's life." Ren said.

Blake narrowed her eyes. "No, I don't think that's it. Something about that was a little fishy. And Degurechaff does _not_ seem like the religious type."

"Anyway, you guys should rest up before you go," Jaune grunted, wincing as he grasped burn marks on his arms, "You need to come up with another strategy. Who knows, she could be hiding in the freaking trees at this point."

Ren nodded. "I agree. It would be detrimental for us to continue further without a plan."

But Blake shook her head. "No, it hasn't been long since she escaped. She could be still on the run. We're larger than her, so we can cover more distance. We'll catch up to her eventually."

Weiss almost disagreed. Sure, Degurechaff could be retreating for now, but going in blind was not a good idea. She was almost sure that it was this mindset that got all those White Fang agents killed.

But they didn't have a choice. And it was their best option. Class was almost over, with around 15 minutes left before they had to go back. They didn't have such time to form such a strategy. All they could rely on now were their quick wits, team coordination, and speed, guerilla warfare style.

Yang grimaced as she stretched once more, feeling her sore back pop at the sudden action. She decided to have it looked at later. Aura or not, that impact hurt like a motherfu-

"Alright, so we should stick together as a group. I don't think it's a good idea to split up. If she manages to take us down, we basically lose. And…die…if this was a real situation." Ruby stammered a bit.

They fell quiet at that. They knew full and well that was what would have happened in a real life and death scenario. They were confident that they worked well together. After all, it wasn't every day that rookie teams managed to take down two Elder Grimm.

Yang broke the silence by slamming her armored fists together. "We'll think over that later. Right now, we've got a professor to catch."

"As much as I hate to admit it," Weiss spoke over Yang's outcry, "She's right. We are running out of time."

She turned to the group. "Ruby? We're all counting on you."

Ruby gulped as all eyes trained on her. She knew that as a leader, she would have to take responsibility and carry her team to victory. But she wasn't sure that she could. She couldn't help but feel that she would not be able to replicate the victory achieved a couple days ago during Initiation.

With a few deft twists, she converted Crescent Rose from sniper form to scythe form. This was no time to panic now. She was the leader of this team. Ozpin believed in her, Yang believed in her, Blake believed in her. Heck, Weiss did too! And she didn't even like her at first!

"Alright, Blake, you take point. Just stay a little bit ahead of us, since you're good with stealth and all that. Weiss, you stick with me and Yang, and use your Glyphs to support us when you can."

She gestured with her weapon towards the forest. "She couldn't have gone far yet. We can still catch up. Let's go!"

And so they all sped off into the thick of the forest, with the voices of encouragement from JNPR fading behind them.

 **[-]**

"…That was way to close…"

"I agree…I swear a rock the size of a Bullhead almost crushed me…"

"Should we tell HQ about this?"

 _"_ _Tell us about what?"_

"O-Oh, HQ! You're back! And we were just talking about the…Devil! Yes, she didn't do much, isn't that right, 13?"

"Y-Yes, she just taught her students and left in a hurry. Class at Beacon is almost over, after all."

 _"_ _I see… Did she see you or give any indication that she knew you were there?"_

"No sir. We retreated to the base of a large pile of boulders. Unfortunately, that was where she took base, but she didn't see us at all. We camped out under an outcrop."

"HQ, remind us why we're on this damn suicidal mission again?"

 _"_ _Brother Taurus wanted you two to see if the intel he got from that Witch was legit. If that Devil is actually here, then we would be killing two birds with one stone. She'll stand no chance against what will happen in the near future."_

"I see. Well, we got all the intel we needed. We're gonna need you guys to send over a dropship to pick us up."

 _"_ _Understood, 25. Head out of that sectioned forest and into the woods up north towards the mountains. I don't expect there to be too much Grimm activity. We'll have a ship within the hour."_

"Perfect. It's about time we got out of this forsaken place. Over and out."

 _"_ _Over and out."_

 **[-]**

The forest was quiet. Too quiet. Then again, the tiny blonde didn't expect the students to suddenly go completely commando and go in guns blazing, but this was just eerily silent. Maybe they gave up?

Nah, they wouldn't. Maybe some would, but not team RWBY. She could always tell. Miss Rose seemed all the more eager to prove she was a competent leader and all, but that would be her downfall, as she could get herself in a load of trouble in the future.

Miss Schnee was too prideful to let her go. She was Winter's sister, after all.

Belladonna probably didn't like her so much, seeing how her excursions in the past involved taking down many Faunus extremists.

And Miss Xiao Long definitely hated her guts. She was probably scared of her too. Her character completely revolved around intimidating her enemies, whether it was through flirting or fury alone. But Tanya doubted Yang had ever met someone like her. Someone so young capable of withstanding her rage and combatting it with their own. And that probably terrified her to no end.

She shifted on the branch she was alighted on, bundles of bright green leaves blocking anyone from the outside seeing her. Which was a welcome fact, as sometimes her hair had the nasty habit of giving away her location.

She fingered her golden locks. Maybe she should dye her hair soon. She hated doing things to her hair, but it may be necessary to do so in the future. She didn't want some trigger happy terrorist to snipe her brains out after sighting the golden hue.

She glanced at the small wristwatch. About ten minutes left in class. Most of the students probably gave up already or were obliterated by that attack from earlier. It was their fault for straying into the clearing where they were easily seen.

Oh yeah, she almost forgot. Before she reached the boulders she took down a lone team that had gotten separated from the group. It was child's play. The leader didn't even notice until the last second that Tanya knocked out his teammates one by one.

Poor things didn't stand a chance.

She decided to check the status of her ammunition stock. She used up quite a bit fighting JNPR and RWBY earlier. In all of her years of living, both in Tokyo and in Remnant, she would have never expected Miss Nora Valkyrie to have such a specific Semblance. She absorbed that bullet like a sponge and used the electricity from the Dust to fuel her energy.

Tanya guessed that the electricity boosted her muscles and strength, maybe about ten times its normal amount.

Well, now she knew not to use Electricity Dust against her anymore.

And as for her ammo, she had about three magazines of Electricity Dust, four mags of Burn Dust, two mags of Wind Dust, and seven mags of Ice Dust.

Her knife was still in good condition, and one vial of Burn Dust was used up when she activated it against Miss Xiao Long. That should have left a sizable dent in her Aura since it was hit in such close proximity.

She grabbed an Ice Dust magazine and slammed it into her gun. JNPR was out of commission, so that left only RWBY. Ice Dust would be pretty damn effective against them. Blake, being the stealthy type, would be easily heard as her feet would crunch on the newly created frost.

Yang became fiery when activating her Semblance so ice was a good counter against that.

Ruby would most likely slip on the ice whilst activating her Semblance, and the steam produced by Yang's Semblance clashing with the frost would block her sniping view.

Weiss would probably be the least affected, seeing how she grew up in Atlas and worked with Ice Dust on a regular basis, as the records said it was a favorite of hers.

But the steam should be easily able to take care of that.

Tanya then opened up her Scroll. Her red icon pinged on the map screen, placing her approximately a couple hundred meters away from the boulders. Far enough to take point.

She slowly pushed her rifle barrel through the branches, making sure to keep it in the shadows. If her calculations were correct, the teens would be coming from the north, so she kept her rifle trained that way.

Today had slightly exceeded her expectations. She never knew JNPR and RWBY could cooperate so effectively. Granted, their bond may have been strengthened after fighting two Elder Grimm a couple of days ago, but this bond progressed faster than she thought. She sorely underestimated them.

A snap of a twig snapped her out of her thoughts. She shifted slightly as she pointed her gun towards the sound. Whatever broke that branch wasn't an animal. It was too heavy, and nothing weighing more than a rabbit lived in this stretch of woods.

Her blue eyes caught sight of a head of brunette hair tinged with red. Ruby Rose. Closely following behind her was young Miss Schnee and Miss Xiao Long, all looking very much on edge.

Tanya's eyes narrowed. But where was Miss Belladonna?

 **CLANG**

The blonde's instincts screamed as she barely managed to pull out her knife and block a giant black machete from hitting her.

The resulting impact was enough to throw the young girl out of her tree, exposing none other than the hidden Faunus herself, her amber eyes filled with a predatory gaze.

Without missing a beat, Tanya shot a couple rounds at her midair. Blake barely dodged them as the bullets hit the trunk of the tree behind her. The resulting spikes of fractal ice bisected parts of the tree, sending the branches and a quarter of the tree crashing to the forest floor, stirring up a cloud of dust.

Tanya landed lightly on her feet and rolled to the side as Rose, Schnee, and Xiao Long all shot their respective projectiles at her, Weiss's being Glyphs of varying size and color.

The soldier dove behind another tree as the rounds shaved off bits and pieces. Blake was shooting too, jumping from tree to tree, and forcing Tanya to keep changing cover.

Tanya ducked as Gambol Shroud flew over her head, cutting a bush instead.

She waited until she heard telltale signs of Yang's special Burn Dust rounds, and then made her move.

Just before the flares hit the tree she was hiding behind, she fired a single shot at the plant, covering it with a thick ice.

The flare exploded, sending chunks of frozen wood everywhere and created a thick steam. Even Tanya couldn't see more than two feet in front of her.

But she wasn't known as Second Lieutenant Degurechaff for nothing. She fought in more handicapped battles before, all of which she had come out unscathed. This fog was nothing more than a slight annoyance.

Blake sniffed the air as she slowly stalked through the trees. To her displeasure, her sensitive nose couldn't detect anything other than steam and traces of Yang's flare rounds.

That was Degurechaff for you. Always analyzing her opponents and using their moves against them, giving her the upper hand. Inwardly, Blake wanted to yell at Yang. Sure, she didn't know that the Devil was going to do that, but she could have shown a little restraint. Instead of firing off willy-nilly, she should have waited for a chance to get close and then blast her.

She was also a little salty that she didn't manage to damage Degurechaff more. A small slice of revenge for all the people she had killed. Good people who only wanted equality. Misguided, maybe, but they were fighting for a just cause turned sour.

"Blake! Where are you, we have to regroup! You can't take her on alone!"

As loathe she was to admit it, Weiss was right. Degurechaff put herself at a handicap for a reason. That meant she knew what she was dealing with and made countermeasures against it.

Blake stealthily navigated through the mist, which to her reassurance, was starting to dissipate. She almost cursed. This stupid fog was still messing with her nose. The only way to find her friends was through hearing.

The Faunus slunk over to where she heard the heiress's voice. To her relief, she found three shapes outlined in the fog. One of which was carrying a large scythe.

Blake relaxed a bit. "Alright, I'm here. She shouldn't be that far behind, so we should stay quiet."

No response.

"Guys?"

A sudden gust of wind blew through the forest, clearing away the last remnants of mist away to Oum knew where.

Blake gasped in shock. Her teammates were there, yes, but not unscathed.

They were all held upright to have the illusion of standing up, but they were supported by several wires, all attached to a tree above them.

Yang groaned as she twitched from the effects of Electricity Dust coursing through her system. That bastard Devil had managed to sneak up on her and cover her mouth as she shattered a Dust crystal against her, sending the full load into her system. In her Aura weakened state and complete ignorance, she collapsed immediately.

Ruby and Weiss, hearing the noise, crept over to see what had happened, until Tanya ran up behind Weiss and struck her in the back of the head with the butt of her rifle. Ruby soon followed suit, having suffered a nasty kick to the stomach, sending all of her air out of her lungs.

As she lay gasping for breath, the tiny girl knocked her out too with a swift kick to the back of the head. She was out like a light. It seemed that Degurechaff stuck the end of the scythe into the ground to make it look like Ruby was holding it.

Blake quickly ran through the bushes blocking her path and swiftly cut the twine. The three girls all crumpled, groaning as they fell to the earth, cradling their aching heads.

She knelt down and helped them into sitting position. Weiss grumbled a bit, wincing as she touched a sore spot on her head. She gently tried to dislodge any twigs and dirt in her hair, deploring at the sight of her normally perfect and clean hair dirtied.

Ruby pulled herself up using Crescent Rose as a crutch. Her knees threatened to buckle as she rubbed her aching stomach.

Yang was the last to recover, still slightly twitching from the aftereffects of the Dust. She grinned sheepishly at a concerned Blake. "Guess I messed up a bit, huh?"

Blake sighed in relief and smiled a bit. "It's fine. We still have a chance to get back at her."

"I somehow doubt that."

Blake spun and aimed down her pistol. Standing a scant ten feet from them was Degurechaff herself, holding her weapon in a relaxed position and her bag slung over her shoulder.

The rest of the group readied their weapons too, but their activity was stopped by a placating hand by the little girl. "Don't even bother. Time is up and most of you are in no shape to keep fighting."

RWBY reluctantly put away their weapons. When they realized it was not a trick, time really was up; they groaned a bit and collapsed into the dirt, not caring if their clothes got dirty in the process.

While the team recovered and rested for a bit, Tanya fished out her Scroll and sent a class-wide message to the rest of the teams to meet back at the edge of the forest.

She then fished through her bag and pulled out a small water bottle. She took a long drink, letting her parched throat recover from all the dust she inhaled.

"You all were very impressive working together with Team JNPR."

Ruby blushed a bit at the praise. Sure, they sucked, but they did manage to get their professor on edge and shave off most of her Aura.

"But it seemed you severely underestimated my abilities."

The tired team looked down at the ground at this. It was true. They had expected her to be defenseless without her main weapon of choice, but they miscalculated the time it took for her to recover. Then again, how were they supposed to know that she could suddenly power up like Nora hopped up on twenty Electricity Dust crystals?

"In a real life situation, you will not usually be pursuing a target blind. You will most likely know their true abilities. And if you don't, you will have to make sure to throw your all into taking the target down, even if you overkill a bit."

She nodded her head at Weiss, who gripped her rapier tighter. "Miss Schnee had the great idea of using Gravity Dust to her advantage and shooting at me to shave off some Aura, but you shot infrequently. If Miss Xiao Long arrived a little earlier, she would have been out of range of that Gravity Dust. Therefore, she could have fired off some rounds, which would have been devastating to me due to my small size."

Ruby blinked as Tanya suddenly tossed her another small water bottle. The reaper juggled the drink for a bit before finally grabbing hold. Tanya smiled. "But you all did well. I am impressed. And trust me, I do not impress easily."

With that, she walked away, presumably heading back to the school.

The rest of the team made to follow, their muscles and bones screaming with protest. Weiss gently pulled back the team as they followed the girl. She brought them close. "Don't get caught up in her flattery. I am sure she's trying to get us to like her more."

Ruby pouted. "But Weiss, she's impressed! I mean, it's not every day you get to impress a professor like that."

Blake chimed in. "No, Weiss is right. If what she said was true, then Degurechaff would likely try to get on peoples good sides. She's trying to use us to boost her reputation."

Ruby hummed. She wasn't so sure about that. Maybe Weiss and Blake were right, but to be honest, the Lieutenant didn't seem as bad as everybody was portraying her. Sure, she killed people and scared everybody and was sadistic at times, but she seemed nice enough.

She looked back at the retreating figures of her team. But maybe she should trust her team. After all, looks could be deceiving. Maybe Degurechaff was trying to use them to her advantage. Bolstering her image and all that.

Yeah, she will trust her team for now. After all, Weiss knew her more and Blake never looked so serious. But maybe someday, she could find the good in Degurechaff and bring it out. No person could be so cruel to not have a good side, right?

 **[-]**

Tanya dropped her pack to the ground as she watched students file out of the woods, all of them groaning and nursing cuts and bruises.

Cardin and his team glared at her a bit, but they remained quiet enough. They probably didn't say anything because she was still holding her rifle. They grunted as they massaged their aching muscles and collapsed onto the grass.

Tanya quickly counted off some heads. It seemed they were all here. All of them bruised and battered, but here nonetheless.

She set her gun down on a nearby boulder and leaned against the rough bark of an oak tree. "Harder than it sounded, wasn't it?"

The class grumbled and a few nodded their heads.

"While it is admirable that you all thought of splitting off into groups in order to try and confuse me, it wouldn't work for someone with such a high vantage point. I could see where all of you were."

She lazily checked her nails. "All of you would have had a much better chance of surviving if you all formed a larger group. Even if some teams don't necessarily like each other," most teams looked to CRDL, "the survival rate would have been much higher."

An unidentified student raised his hand. "But Professor, isn't staying in a group worse than splitting up? I mean, in all those war movies that we've seen, a large group is more likely to get wiped out."

"What did I say about the trash the media and CCT pour out? I could list at least seven different students with defensive capabilities. If those students worked together and defended while the other teammates attacked, I would have a very difficult time trying to keep up."

She pointed at teams RWBY and JNPR. "The only groups that were able to keep me on my toes were these two. Using a mix of surprise tactics, flanking, and a clever combination of Dust and Semblance, they managed to cut my Aura down to 72%."

To prove it, she pulled up her Aura meter to show her bar in the orange zone. "Imagine my state if the rest of the eight teams hounded on me."

RWBY and JNPR were shocked. Even after crushing her with increased gravity, shooting her, and wearing her down, her Aura was only down to 72%? Just how potent was her Aura?

Cardin groaned. "Okay, I get it, we screwed up. It was just a mistake."

The diminutive girl shook her head. "No. What you made was an error."

"The fuck's the difference?"

"Anyone can make an error, Mr. Winchester. But that error doesn't become a mistake until they refuse to correct it."

She stowed her Scroll away. "With those words in mind, I hope you may all be able to best me one day. It's not impossible; only very difficult. It is my job to train all of you to be the best godamn Hunters and Huntresses Remnant has ever seen. And I will do my best to make it that way."

With that, she picked up her equipment and walked through the sea of exhausted students. "You are all dismissed. Feel free to wash up and change before heading to your other classes. I will send some homework to your Scrolls."

She turned her head a bit and gave off a small, but creepy, smile. "I expect at least a five paragraph essay on it."

As one, the class groaned. Life sucked!

 **[-]**

Tanya sighed as she collapsed onto the swivel chair behind her desk. She lazily tossed her equipment onto the flat surface and set her gun down next to her.

Today was eventful. The students still had a lot to learn, and she had to learn how to teach without punishing the students too harshly.

But although class was relatively short and not too informative, she knew things would slowly get better. It had to. Her future depended on it.

She would only be truly safe from the battlefield if she worked hard at Beacon. After doing that, she would go back to Atlas, and with her past transcripts as a professor at the most prestigious academy in Vale, she was guaranteed a relatively easy ride to the upper echelon.

Maybe she could work her way up to general.

Tanya sat up straight and stretched her arms over her head. Eh, that was still a ways off. This was no time to be dreaming. She had to focus on the now in order to cement her future.

The blonde opened up her Scroll and started to mass send out the essay/homework to her students. It was nothing too bad; it was just an essay on how the strategies learned today were used by the military back in the Great War.

Her class didn't really have the textbooks with them though. The ones in her classroom desks were school copies. Beacon was supposed to be receiving a fresh shipment of the books by the end of the week.

Thinking over this, Tanya added a small subtext at the top of each essay rubric with a link directing to a PDF file of an online textbook. This textbook itself was a little outdated, but it would do the job for now.

A knock on the door caught her attention. She straightened up. "Come in."

The wooden door opened to reveal a man holding a cup of steaming coffee. "Hello, Professor Degurechaff. I hope your class went well?"

In a flash, the girl was on her feet, her body snapping into a salute. "Of course, Headmaster. There are a few kinks to be worked out, but there is nothing pressing to report thus far."

Ozpin choked a bit on his drink. He was wholly unused to the saluting and stiff way of talking to superiors in the military. It made him feel a bit uncomfortable. "I see. I heard teams RWBY and JNPR had you on your toes?"

Tanya pulled a fake, but convincing smile. "Yes sir. With more training, they are a formidable threat to any Grimm in the future."

Ozpin walked over and pulled up a nearby chair from one of the desks. "While it is good to hear that, I did not come here to only talk about your class."

The blonde nodded. She suspected as much. She knew as soon as he stepped through the door that something was on his mind. No high class official came to visit his subordinates for no good reason. There was always something else hiding behind their façade.

"Of course. What did you want to discuss?"

Ozpin dug out his Scroll and opened up a map of the forest used by Degurechaff just a few minutes earlier. "What do you make of this, Lieutenant?"

Her blue eyes shifted as she observed two red dots that avoided tripping too much security and hid in the shadows. They were too stealthy for Grimm or civilians, which led to only one possible conclusion. "The White Fang."

The grey-haired headmaster nodded. "I suspect so too. While they didn't do anything other than observe, it is still a disconcerting thought to have such individuals so close to our students."

Tanya nodded. "But why did you not warn me about them, sir? They should have been detained and interrogated immediately."

Ozpin drew back his Scroll and leaned into the chair. "I needed to know what they were up to. While it is dangerous to have terrorists in my school, information about why they are here was necessary. Is that not a tactic used in Atlas? Bait in the enemy and spy on the spies?"

The soldier agreed reluctantly. While she disagreed with the headmaster's reluctance to tell her, she understood why he did so. "What shall we do if they come again?"

"Next time will not be so lucky for them. This circumstance was to simply observe them and try and figure out why they were here. So far, it seems they were watching you, as you are not a typically well-liked person to the White Fang. So the next time they come, I would like you to capture them. I will send you their whereabouts. You are to hold class and keep them busy until the other professors and proper authorities arrive."

"So you are basically telling me to make my class a potential trap for these invaders."

Ozpin nodded. While Degurechaff pondered over it, he fell into his thoughts too. There was another reason for setting up a trap. A reason he would not tell Degurechaff until she was completely trustworthy.

It was a long shot, but he suspected that the White Fang were partly responsible for putting Amber in her condition. Qrow had said that the attackers were definitely human, but the headmaster couldn't help but feel as if something was odd.

This, along with unusual White Fang activity, boosted his belief that something was going on in the shadows. Maybe the Fang was working with the perpetrators. Which was why he wanted to set this trap. Capture the agents and interrogate them until they gave up their secrets. And if they didn't, they would be forced to spend a good portion of their lives in the Vale Prison for infringing upon private school property, unlawful breaking and entering, and allying themselves with a terrorist organization.

Tanya hummed as she pretended to think it over. This plan made sense, of course, but there was something the headmaster was not telling her. There was an underlying reason for this. He needed to know something.

She didn't know what that something was, but she might be able to figure it out if she went through with Ozpin's plan.

Tanya looked back at the blank face of the headmaster. Time to pull the concerned and slightly caring teacher card. "I agree to your plan, but make sure it does not involve any of my students. They are not ready to handle such things just yet."

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. _And I suppose an eleven year old child is ready to handle such things?_

"I can assure you, Lieutenant, that none of the students will come to harm."

Tanya sighed in faux relief. "If you say so, sir."

Ozpin smiled a bit and stood up. "Thank you, Professor Degurechaff."

He turned to walk out the door. He froze for a scant few seconds with his hand on the doorknob. "Ah, by the way, Lieutenant, how do you feel about a teacher aid?"

Tanya blinked a little. Why was he talking about a teacher aid now? Did he doubt her abilities to lead a class of pubescent children? "I do hope you are not doubting my teaching methods, headmaster."

Ozpin laughed a little as he pulled out his Scroll to check a recent message from Glynda. "No, not at all, it's just that the Council had a conference and wanted to give you some…extra help, if you will."

Tanya ground her teeth a bit. Great, first making her class a trap for dangerous individuals and now this? She knew she couldn't go against the Council's wishes, but she couldn't help but feel annoyed.

"And where will this person be staying?" Tanya asked.

Ozpin almost chuckled again. "You two will be sharing rooms, of course. Military personnel or not, there are some things that require adult supervision. For example, when you go out into the city, there are some things that a child, no offense, is not allowed to do. Therefore, the Council decided to select a competent adult to do such business for you. Does this not make classwork easier for you?"

Tanya grunted. "While it may be inconvenient at times, I do admit it may be helpful. But as far as I know, there are very few people in the Vale district that are qualified to help me teach such a class. We can't have just any person, Huntsman or not, to assist me."

The headmaster simply smiled and swung open the door. "That is why the Council decided to choose someone _not_ from the Vale area."

A woman, maybe in her late teens or early twenty's, walked past the doorframe. She wore white military garb like Tanya herself, and had several stripes on her shoulder. A Second Lieutenant? "Please excuse the interruption!"

Tanya almost dropped her Scroll in shock. She couldn't help but let her mouth fall open a little bit. "What are you doing here?"

Viktoriya Serebryakov smiled and snapped to a salute, her blue eyes twinkling with mirth. "I know it's only been three days, but it's good to see you again, Lieutenant!"

In all the shock and confusion, the young soldier could only think of one thing. _Well, I guess I can't get rid of that dress after all…_

 **[-]**

 **And that is it for this chapter. Sorry I've been gone for like, three months. Being X decided to curse me again with a crap-ton of work. I know I promised that won't happen again, but it did, so excuse the long absence.**

 **So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. To be honest, I felt as if this one was a little awkward in places and I might be moving too fast with including Viktoriya in it and all, but I'm just rushing a little so we can get to the good crap later.**

 **And those of you all in the reviews were telling me that Weiss's mother is not dead and she is in fact alive and well in the RWBY-verse. I am well aware of this, but I didn't really feel as if Weiss having a mother figure would help me with the story, so I kinda dumped her. Nothing against her, but I just felt it would be inconvenient. Sorry about that.**

 **Also, just to clarify, I am not that good at writing fight scenes, so please excuse my awkward writing. If anyone could help me out with it, that'd be great. In the meantime, I will be researching how to write good ones on my own, but any help is appreciated.**

 **And for those of you wondering why I have Grand Admiral Thrawn's quotes in there, I actually got the idea from Bighead98 (I hope you don't mind the shoutout). I really liked the quotes so I incorporated it into the story.**

 **So yeah, I hope you all enjoyed. To make up for the hella long absence, I made this chapter around 16k plus words.**

 **Please feel free to drop a review or PM, I always read those.**

 **Till next time (which would be like a couple months if my luck stays this way)!**


	7. Chapter 7

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Youjo Senki or RWBY. They belong to their respectful owners.**

 **[-]**

The moon hung eerily over the city of Vale, twinkling its shattered light over the suburbs. Even in the dead of night, Vale was never fully asleep and bustled with the sounds of honking cars, laughter, drunken banter, and music.

But beneath that happy exterior lay a dark secret.

Nobody, except for the government and police force, knew about the criminal underground and what horrors happened in the dark. Theft, assault, the occasional rape, and the even more occasional murder.

And tonight was the night for those horrors.

"Come on, can't you animals move a bit faster?" Roman yelled, puffs of smoke coming out of his mouth like an asthmatic dragon.

The laborers said nothing other than the occasional growl. Many of them wondered why Adam even decided to allow them to help the criminal in the first place. They wanted to fight and work ever so closer to destroy inequality once and for all.

But instead they were taking orders from a filthy human.

Adam knew their complaints and assured them that this all had a purpose, even if they knew he hated working for them as well.

Right now they were busy hauling large crates of Dust to their getaway vehicle, a beaten truck that they restored at the docks.

All it took was a forged license plate to cover the old one and it would be untraceable if any authorities managed to catch a glimpse.

Roman pulled his cigar to his mouth and took a deep inhale. As he breathed out, he glanced down at the tied up bundle propped up against the alley wall.

The bundle in question wriggled as frantically as he could, screams of protest muffled by the gag and tears streaming down his dirty face.

Roman sighed. Why, out of all days, did this happen? As they broke into the warehouse containing a fresh shipment of refined Dust from Atlas, a snooping homeless brat had to peek around the corner, presumably looking for a discarded lunch the workers had thrown away before they left for the day.

It took three men to catch up to the elusive kid before he could scream for help.

He pressed the tip of his cigar against the crate he was sitting on and tossed it into a muddy puddle. He hopped off his seat and stalked over to the kid, who was still trying his best to break free from his bindings.

The criminal knelt down and roughly grabbed the brat by his dirty yellow hair. Luckily he had his gloves on, so he wouldn't have to worry about catching some kinda disease. Kid was filthier than the inside of a sewer pipe.

The child, feeling the contact, immediately shut up after being face to face with the man he had seen on TV so many times. The man wanted for theft, breaking and entering, assault, and even murder. The ever elusive Roman Torchwick.

Roman stayed in this position for a full minute before sighing and rubbing his eyes. "Listen kid, I don't like this situation any more than you do, but you don't leave me much of a choice."

He let go of the boy's hair and grabbed Melodic Cudgel, his signature weapon. Although it didn't look like much, the homeless orphan knew exactly what it was and what kind of damage it could wreak. "If I decide to let you go, we have no guarantee that you'll go blabbing to the authorities that I appear to be tied to the White Fang. Then again, not a lot of people will believe you, but the ones that do will put quite a wrench into the gears of our little operation."

The boy grunted in protest, trying his best to tell the man that he wouldn't say a word. That he would much prefer to leave this place alone forever.

"And since I can't really have that happening…"

He waved a hand behind him. "I'm gonna have to keep you quiet. Permanently."

A lithe shadow hopped onto the cement floor next to him, standing up to a height of a little under his chest.

Gleaming heterochromic eyes peered out from the darkness, one brown and the other pink. Clacking heels reached the boy's ears.

The figure stepped into the light, revealing a young woman with a brown and pink color scheme, her porcelain face smiling as she walked over to the bundle. In her hand was a little pink and white frilled umbrella, but the way she held it…it sent shivers of dread down the child's spine.

The boy screamed as hard as he possibly could, but the noise didn't get very far. The smelly gag in his mouth prevented it.

Roman shrugged, his eyes slightly tinged with guilt. He never liked killing children. Men and women and annoying teenagers he was okay with, but kids were where he normally drew the line. But, under these circumstances, he didn't have much of a choice. "Sorry bud. Trust me, I wish things could have turned out differently."

He gestured with his cane. "Make it quick, we're on a schedule."

Neo looked up, her eyes filled with madness as she traced gentle lines on the boy's chest with an outstretched finger.

Roman sighed. "I don't care if you like it when they scream. Take off that gag, and I'll have to explain to Cinder why the authorities found a brat's body next to a looted warehouse."

Neo pouted and pulled out her umbrella, pulling the sheath off until it revealed the blade inside. The kid began to struggle again, trying his best to find anything, anything, to help him out. A shard of glass to cut the bonds, a brick to attack his captors, anything.

Neo looked up imploringly at the master thief.

"Ugh, fine, you can have a little fun if you want. Just don't get too much blood on the ground, we're gonna have to dump the body later."

Neo nodded excitedly, now replacing the finger with her blade, tracing little circles on the kid's chest. The child stopped moving, breathing heavily as tears streamed down his face. His wide brown eyes pleaded for mercy, and fear emanated from every pore.

The girl simply smiled and licked her lips.

 **[-]**

Roman lit another cigar as he relaxed in the van, letting all the tension leave his body.

Normally he would be pretty happy that a robbery had gone according to plan. The satisfaction was like a drug. But nowadays he just wasn't feeling it.

He never liked taking orders. And taking orders from that witch was really grating his nerves. He liked to go his own pace, but now he was being ordered to rob more and more Dust for a cause he knew next to nothing about. It sucked. After all, the fastest way to lose interest in something you loved was being forced to do it day after day, even if you didn't want to.

The sound of clacking heels caught his attention. He turned to face the window just in time to see his partner in crime walk out from the shadows of the now empty warehouse. He winced.

She looked horrible. Blood stained her clothes and dripped behind her, though she was taking care not to let so much onto the floor. Her face was also splashed in a healthy dose of crimson, and he swore he saw red in her cheeks, irregular breathing, and hooded, pleasured eyes.

She stopped next to the open window and flicked some blood off of her gloves into the sewer. Roman said nothing and took another drag. "You're sick sometimes, you know that?"

Neo just smiled.

"…whatever. Two of you go clean the mess up. We should have a tarp in the back somewhere. Wrap the body and we'll dump it at the docks later."

He held up a hand just as Neo was about to grab the door handle. "Hold it, shrimp. I don't want blood staining these seats. You go sit in the back and make sure everything is okay."

The girl pouted but obeyed regardless. Maybe she could have some more fun with the body. Dead people usually didn't excite her, but it was a way to pass boredom and perfect her techniques.

Roman rubbed his eyes. Neo was great and all, but sometimes he questioned why he kept her around. She had her benefits, but she was just so bloodthirsty all the time.

He felt his Scroll vibrate in his pocket. With a sigh, he pulled it out and answered. "What."

" _Was the operation a success?"_

Roman gripped the Scroll a bit harder. "Yes, of course, you've never seen me make a mistake yet."

" _Good,"_ Cinder purred, _"Now get back to the warehouse as soon as possible. We found some interesting intel on our little pest."_

"Yeah, yeah…" Roman muttered as he ended the call.

He leaned back and looked up at the sky. "Why do I always get tangled up with the weird ones?"

The shattered moon said nothing in return but twinkled slightly, as if mocking his distress.

 **[-]**

Tanya grunted as she shoved a miniature fridge into the corner of her room. Her back strained with protest and her tiny feet dug into the carpet.

With one final push, she finally reached the wall and plugged the cord into a nearby outlet.

She wiped the sweat off her brow. Finally. Organizing was complete.

She looked behind her. Viktoriya hummed as she hung up photos on the wall, most of them being pictures of her dear captain and friends.

Since she got here a few hours ago, preparations have already been made to have the woman dorm with Degurechaff. That included another bed, a cupboard, and an extra wardrobe.

To be completely honest, never in her wildest dreams did she expect Viktoriya to come to Vale. She had thought it was some random Huntress that would patronize her every move and not take her seriously since she had the body of an eleven year old.

Luckily, that wasn't the case and the Council saw fit to send her someone she was most comfortable with. Someone with undying loyalty to her captain.

And what she completely didn't expect was the letter Viktoriya brought her.

" _I've been promoted?" Tanya exclaimed, her blue eyes wide with disbelief._

 _Viktoriya nodded excitedly and passed a letter to her. The letter was from General Ironwood himself, congratulating her for her bravery in taking down a terrorist that threatened to destabilize the power in the Kingdom. Then he hit her with a promotion._

 _So she basically bumped up from Second Lieutenant to Major in the span of a day._

 _Tanya looked up from the paper. "But taking down a terrorist would hardly warrant a promotion up two ranks."_

 _Viktoriya tapped her chin. "But Lieuten- uh, I mean, Major, they took into account your leadership skills and the many campaigns you held during your stay. And of course, your performance in the White Fang attack a year ago."_

 _Tanya fought back a grin. She couldn't appear too happy. She had to maintain her stoic image. The blonde straightened, "Then, on behalf of the Atlas Military, I gladly take this promotion and vow to withhold order to the best of my abilities."_

 _She snapped into a salute. Viktoriya quickly followed suit._

 _Ozpin, who had been looking on from the sidelines, smiled briefly before clearing his throat. "Congratulations on your promotion, Major Degurechaff. I hate to cut this celebration short, but we still have a many great things to discuss, primarily about Miss Serebryakov's involvement in your class."_

 _Tanya grabbed her things. "Of course, Headmaster. Let's go, Lieutenant. We have a lot of settling in to do."_

And after an hour or two of discussing what Viktoriya would do, they finally got situated into their dorm. It seemed Viktoriya brought everything of value to her.

And she had a _lot_ of things of value to her.

First off was her suitcase. It was so full the seams were literally falling apart and the metal buckles were barely clinging to the leather. It took two men to lift the entire suitcase up the stairs to the room.

Second were her boxes. While Tanya brought boxes full of bare essentials, Viktoriya saw fit to literally take everything with her. Some of the things she brought even confused Tanya, as the military usually did not allow such things in the barracks. I mean, how the hell did she smuggle two bottles of fine wine with her?

Lastly were her clothes. Clearly her second-in-command felt comfort was necessary, so she brought along as many t-shirts, blouses, skirts, and dresses as possible.

Tanya watched in mild amusement as the huge suitcase suddenly exploded, sending the clothes flying all across the room. She moved her head to the side to avoid a bra hurtling towards her face at about thirty kilometers an hour.

She could only watch on as the woman yelped a bit and flailed about trying to catch as many clothes as she could, her burning cheeks illuminating the room.

The blonde teacher sighed and knelt down to help. She gingerly picked up a frilly pink bra off the ground. Was she trying to impress someone or something? Seriously, if the boys back at Atlas saw her wearing this they would have their noses bleeding for months. No force on Remnant would be able to keep her safe from those hormone-driven children.

Thank god she would never be caught wearing these things. It wasn't just the fact that she was only eleven, but she was a guy too. Technically. God, she dreaded the day she would hit puberty again. If she understood correctly, girls often faced more drastic changes than guys. She shuddered a bit. Hopefully she would be able to fend off hormone-fueled teenagers in the next couple years. She had no interest in dating members of her old sex, thank you very much. Or dating in general. It was too much of a distraction to her work.

Viktoriya blushed more and thanked her superior profusely as Tanya dumped a multitude of bras, panties, dresses, and skirts onto her bed.

Tanya walked over to her own bed and collapsed on top of it. She had much to do tomorrow. First, she had to go over some of the strategies in the textbook for the lecture. Then she had to decide which was more applicable to put into practice. Then she had to go down to the forges and talk to the guy in charge.

She wouldn't be joining them in future exercises this time, however. She felt it maybe would be better to have the class duke it out themselves. Maybe set up teams or something.

Viktoriya finally stuffed the rest of her clothes into her wardrobe and sat down on her bed. She sighed and smiled softly at Tanya. "It's been quite a day, hasn't it, Major?"

Tanya chuckled. "You can say that again. But this job is infinitely easier than training you brats back at Atlas."

Viktoriya laughed. True, she had been almost hopeless when she first enlisted in the army. Everything scared her and sometimes she would be teased because of how timid she was.

It wasn't until she was saved from a Grimm by Major Degurechaff that she began to work harder and more in earnest. Soon she earned the reputation of being the Devil's right-hand woman.

She never really liked that title, though. Sure, she loved helping out the Major, but she didn't like how they called Tanya the Devil. She had her mean sides, but she wasn't that bad. After all, she prayed to God for strength before every fight and fought with a power unlike anything anyone had ever seen.

She hoped that Tanya would soon become more carefree and lived at least some of her life as a young girl.

The brown-haired woman hopped up excitedly. "So, Major, what are we going to teach tomorrow?"

Tanya sat up too, her fingers rubbing her chin. To be honest, she didn't really know how to approach tomorrow's lecture. Actually, she was quite busy with certain things, the most pressing being ordering more Dust rounds for her rifle. To do that, she had to go down to the forges and talk to the professor there about it. That left quite a small bit of time to prepare for classes.

Tanya pointed a finger at the woman. "I have some idea of what to do, but I think I'll have you try teaching for a change."

Viktoriya spluttered. "M-Me? I just got here!"

"It's nothing too hard. Remember when I was absent sometimes in Atlas, you took my place and held exercises? Basically do the same thing for tomorrow. Don't take them into the forest though. Just go through the basics of the strategies and I'll take care of the rest."

"B-But, I'm just a teacher aide. It would look bad if you let me do all the hard work!"

Tanya waved a hand and nestled into her bed, turning off a lamp as she did so. "I'll settle everything with Ozpin tomorrow. He'll understand that you need to get used to teaching here for the next couple years."

The young woman swore she heard a smile in the Major's voice. "Plus, it'll show me how much of an effective teacher aide you are."

Tanya grinned mischievously. "Good night, Second Lieutenant Serebryakov. Sweet dreams."

Viktoriya groaned and flopped onto the mattress. She loved Tanya, but sometimes she was a real piece of work. This wasn't the first time this had happened either. Sometimes the Major would leave without warning and Viktoriya had to take control over thirty men and women, all of whom would have rather liked to stay inside the warm barracks than the bitter cold outside.

Then again, these weren't battle-hardened men and women, just children, so it shouldn't be too bad.

She hoped, at least.

 **[-]**

Ruby yawned widely as she picked at her daily breakfast of Pumpkin Pete's and several chocolate chip cookies.

Weiss spent a good five minutes complaining that her breakfast was way healthier and had more benefits than "an unholy mixture of sweets, sweets, and more sweets".

But to be honest, she didn't listen for most of that speech. Nor did she care. She was too busy being exhausted at the massive amount of writing she had to do for Degurechaff's class. _Not that bad, my butt._

Even as she looked around the bustling cafeteria, she could see many of the students' frantically writing last minute papers. The brunette shivered. She would hate to see what the minute professor would do to them if they didn't finish their essays.

Plus she was still sore from all that work yesterday. Hiking and slicing through a thick forest was hardly easy. Especially if you were carrying a sniper-scythe mechashift that was almost two times your own height.

The table shuddered as the rest of their group sat down. Jaune all but collapsed into his oatmeal, Pyrrha helped his face out of the oatmeal, Ren was as passive as ever, and Nora was already gobbling a stack of pancakes.

"You guys stayed up finishing that essay too, huh?"

They only nodded, as they were too exhausted to talk at the moment. Well, not Nora, she most likely couldn't talk because she was scoffing down about three pancakes at once.

Her sister shoved a loaf of corn bread into her mouth. "Freaking essay had me up till three. We're lucky we had little Miss Encyclopedia over here to help us out."

Weiss glared at the buxom blonde. "I never gave any of you permission to dig through my belongings and loot my paper. If Degurechaff finds out you basically plagiarized my work, she would have you scrubbing toilets for a week!"

"…eh, worth it for the sleep." Yang smirked.

Ruby scooted over next to the heiress and pulled her most devastating 'puppy' face. "But you're gonna help us out later too, right? We're friends, right?"

Sadly that didn't seem to work, as Weiss simply smacked the top of the reaper's head with a rolled up newspaper.

Pyrrha laughed softly. She knew how the white-haired girl felt. She spent a good portion of the night helping her teammates work on their essays too. Ren helped Nora while she helped Jaune. Surprisingly, Jaune knew quite a bit on different battles in the Great War and how the strategies they learned tied into them.

When she asked her blonde leader how he knew so much, he just laughed nervously and stated that his grandfather used to tell him the many stories of the 'glorious war'.

"So what do you think she'll be teaching us today?" she asked.

Blake, who had been sitting on the sidelines, away from the frustrated heiress and excitable brunette, looked up from her book. "Well, if my predictions are correct, according to the textbook, we should be covering deception, distraction, and encirclement. That is if she's still going to cover three today."

Yang smiled smugly. "Oh, I know a lot about distraction…"

As if to emphasize, she stretched exaggeratedly and puffed out her chest a little more than usual. Any males in the nearby vicinity inexplicably found their eyes drawn to her figure like moths to a flame. Even the boys that were taken found themselves staring widely at the bodacious blonde. Sadly that consequently caught the attention of their significant others and quarrels soon erupted.

Jaune could do nothing but blush awkwardly. For some reason Pyrrha's grip on her spoon tightened when she noticed him staring. Maybe she was jealous of Yang's…impressive size?

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I don't think that's what she's going to talk about, you oaf."

"You don't know that. Using your body can bring down someone's defense. Why do you think I wear this all the time?"

The heiress's face turned red and she huffed and turned to eat the rest of her fruits. "Effective or not, using your own body for such…lecherous advantages is nothing short of demeaning."

Yang leaned over, her voice light and teasing. "Aww, is little Weissy jealous hers aren't as big as mine?"

Weiss nearly choked on her milk before she launched into a heated and embarrassed argument with the giggling blonde.

This banter went on for the next couple minutes. Ruby begging Weiss to help her out in the future, Yang loudly making raucous jokes, Blake reading, and JNPR just watching on with amusement.

When the bell rang, they stood up with heavy feet as they went off to morning classes. Degurechaff's class wasn't until late afternoon, so they were fine for the next couple hours. During that time they could hopefully mentally and physically prepare themselves for the next exercise sure to come.

But from what they knew so far, there was no way to prepare themselves for the inevitable torture they had to go through.

 _Please, Oum, please grant us a miracle…_

 **[-]**

Earlier this morning was uneventful. Ozpin woke up to the sound of his alarm; set to 5 AM sharp, brushed up, and headed out to oversee operations at 5:30.

Of course, during that thirty minute time he brewed himself a mug of fresh coffee made from freshly ground beans, graciously given to him by Professor Lionheart in Haven. No other coffee on Remnant came close to the exquisite bitter, yet sweet, flavor.

Surprisingly he received a message from Degurechaff saying that she wouldn't be teaching class for the majority of today. Instead she handed off the responsibility to her new student aide, who had been here for less than 15 hours. Poor girl. He wasn't even sure if she knew exactly what to teach.

Of course, being the kind and gracious headmaster he was, he granted the professor permission to test how effective her second-in-command was at lecturing. If Glynda had been headmaster, she would have under no circumstances let that happen.

He took a hearty gulp from his mug as he swiped through his Scroll on the way up to his office. He had a great many things to cover, especially preparations for the Vytal Festival coming up this next semester.

The elevator doors dinged and slid open, allowing him entry into his beautiful office. He would never outright say it, but he thought his office was the best looking office out of all the headmasters.

Lionheart's was very nice, but it was far too classical for him, ready to ignite in flames whenever someone lit a cigar next to his mountain of books. Ironwood's was the complete opposite. It was completely modern, with bleached white walls and state of the art technology incorporated all throughout the room. Not to mention extremely sterile.

Meanwhile, his office incorporated both modern and classical styles. The ceiling spun with giant bronze gears, surprisingly quiet for their size, and he housed several comfortable chairs and tables.

The grey-haired headmaster made his way to his very comfortable office chair and sat in it with a content sigh. Besides the stress from setting up for all the festivities soon to happen, he felt at peace. Surely nothing too major should happen today.

His Scroll beeped, heralding the arrival of a message.

Thinking nothing of it, the headmaster opened up app and lazily scanned the contents of the text.

 _She's moving. Grimm activity increasing. Something big happening here._

The comfort and peace flew out the window and hit the cobblestone ground with a thundering crash ten stories below.

Coffee forgotten, Ozpin quickly sat straight and immediately forwarded the message over to Glynda and James. Then he sent a reply over to his dear friend.

 _Cease all contact and delete this conversation when you read this. She might have eyes on us. Lay low and keep monitoring. Rendezvous in a month._

True to his word, the chat immediately deleted itself not a minute later, indicating that the recipient left the chat and erased all traces of conversation.

Ozpin sighed and leaned over his table. He rubbed his eyes with a weary groan and took a half-hearted gulp from his mug. Why was she mobilizing so quickly? After being quiet for months, she finally started to stir? And with so much happening too. From the Vytal Festival planning to her new professor, this couldn't have come at a worse time.

In fact, it was almost suspicious how strangely accurate this was timed. It was almost as if she knew him and the rest of the group were occupied and knew exactly when to start.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. It was extremely unlikely there was a spy in their midst. There was no way Glynda would do such a thing, and James, being the old soldier he was, would never betray them like this.

And he had no reason to suspect the new additions to his staff either. To doubt them would be akin to doubting James himself. Nothing would hurt his pride more.

And it was not possible that anyone else would do this. There was no one else who knew about Amber other than them and her cohorts.

Ozpin spun in his chair to face the window. So many questions. This truly threw a wrench in their plans.

But he couldn't do anything about it now. All he could do was trust his spy and wait it out.

If only he had time to wait it out.

 **[-]**

Tanya was completely silent as she glared over her "aspiring" students, who were all rather quiet and subdued this afternoon. Perhaps they were scared. Good. As they should be. She hated nothing more than smarmy brats taking her lightly because of her age and size.

Like that Goldenrod brat all those months ago. She wasn't completely sure what had happened to him, but rumors spread how he was stripped of his rank and forbidden to join the military ever again. Good riddance. She didn't need that insubordinate in her squad.

She suddenly stood up from her chair, causing a sudden screech from the wood grinding on wood. The entire class flinched, even team CRDL. She would have to straighten them out later. If she disciplined them enough and broke them, they would have no problems in the future.

"I sincerely hope you all managed to finish your essays last night. If you have not turned it in yet, I recommend you come see me at the end of class."

She then reached into her pocket and pulled out her holo-disk, which she then placed on the table. "Take out your notes. Lectures will begin shortly."

There was a brief period of heavy shuffling as the class pulled out their respective papers. Ruby winced. "I hope today isn't so bad…" she whispered.

Weiss scoffed lightly. "I doubt that would happen."

The blonde professor suddenly turned and sat back down on her chair and pulled out her Scroll. "You can come in; I know you're out there."

Everybody's attention was brought to the wooden door, which creaked opened slowly. "E-Excuse the interruption, Major!"

What came through the door was the most adorable woman the class had ever seen. Viktoriya stumbled into the class, hair disheveled and military fatigues rumpled. Clearly she had been rushed for time. That was one thing that slightly irked Tanya. She always woke up so damn late.

The class mumbled. Who was this cute woman that suddenly popped into their midst? Ruby leaned over to Weiss. "Is she someone else you know too?"

"Don't assume I know everyone from Atlas, you dolt!"

Tanya spoke up from the front as Viktoriya made her way to the table. "This is Second Lieutenant Viktoriya Serebryakov or TA Serebryakov for short. Those are the only things you can call her. Treat her as well as you would treat me. Anyone who doesn't show my Lieutenant the proper respect will be punished. Got it?"

The class nodded furiously. Weiss muttered, half to herself. "Why on Remnant is a TA is here now? Isn't it too early to have one?"

Viktoriya smoothed her brown hair nervously. "Major, there's no need for that!"

She then turned to the class, a nervous, but friendly smile on her face. Now that everyone got a better look at her, she seemed very nice. Her brown hair was disheveled but still silky smooth, and her bright blue eyes shone with an enthusiastic light. "Hello! You don't have to call me Second Lieutenant, just call me Viktoriya. I served in Major Degurechaff's squad for the past 2 years. I hope I can help out as much as I can here!"

Teams RWBY and JNPR smiled amongst themselves. They already liked this woman better than Degurechaff. She was so damn cute!

"Fine. Viktoriya here will be teaching for the majority of today. Because I have to run some errands after this, we will not be heading into the forest. My TA will be lecturing so I can evaluate her."

With that, the blonde settled into her chair and opened up her Scroll. She waited a few moments before nodding to the stiff TA. "Start whenever you're ready, Second Lieutenant."

Viktoriya jumped a bit. "Of course!"

With one last effort to smooth out her rumpled clothes, Viktoriya took a small gulp before striding to the front of the class. In her hands was a Scroll, already opened to the files she prepared beforehand. With a slightly shaking finger, she tapped on a slide presentation, activating the holo-disk on the table with a dull hum.

The disk sparked to life, sending the slide up into the air where everyone was able to see. Already there was the noise of scribbling pens and pencils on paper.

Viktoriya cleared her throat. "So, following Major Degurechaff's method from yesterday, today we will be covering 3 strategies favored by the Atlas military. Deception, distraction, and encirclement."

Blake whispered to her teammates. "Told you."

"The concept of deception is fairly simple. Much like how those spy movies playing on the CCT nowadays, one principle of deception is intentionally leaking false data that will confuse the enemy."

She slid her finger across the screen and moved onto a new slide. "During the Great War, all the Kingdoms used this strategy. This was implemented in many ways, with each side coming up with more creative methods than the other."

The brown haired woman looked up at the students. "Can any of you think of an example of a possible way to spread deception among enemy ranks?"

Silence met the nervous Lieutenant for a good while. Squirming nervously under the gaze of the students, Viktoriya slightly began to regret jumping for the opportunity to join her beloved superior at this school. _Major, why on Remnant did you decide to push me in the spotlight at the last minute?_

A tentative hand raised into the air, stirring some surprise from the class ranks.

Viktoriya almost gasped in relief. With a small smile, she pointed to the student. "Yes, Mr.…?"

"J-Jaune Arc, ma'am." the blonde gulped, well aware of the many eyes on him. Especially Cardin's. His smile resembled a shark about to tear apart its prey.

Viktoriya gave a sisterly giggle that had the students clutching their hearts. "Oh, no need for the 'ma'am'. I'm not much older that you anyway."

Seeing the stunned look on Jaune's face, the Lieutenant's smile faltered. Did she really look that old? "Anyway, please give us your idea."

"Uh, so what I was kinda thinking was sending out fake plans that can be intercepted by the enemy so they think they'll be at a different place than they actually are?"

Viktoriya clapped her hands. "Yup! This was a popular strategy used by all the Kingdoms at this time. It was so effective that none of the Kingdoms precisely knew when to strike and when not to. They never developed a set strategy against this sort of thing, so the Kingdoms were never on equal footing with one another."

The brown-haired woman smiled up at the blonde. "Thank you Mr. Arc."

Jaune took this as his cue to set his hand down, his face burning as Pyyrha whispered encouragement.

"There are several more different branches of deception. Anyone else have any ideas?"

An unidentified student raised her hand. "What about feigned retreat?"

"Ah, a big one for sure. There's no better way to deceive your enemy by pretending you lost. This was especially favored by the Kingdom of Mistral in the Great War. Once the enemy either chases your retreating troops or relax as they think the fighting is over, you can surprise them with a devastating blow."

With this, she swiped to a picture depicting a 2D battlefield with a bunch of arrows, with the red arrows showing the enemy movements. "If I were you, I'd write this down. Learning how to effectively deceive your enemy is key in a battle."

Viktoriya waited a couple moments for the students to sketch a diagram of the picture above. She took a tiny glance at Major Degurechaff sitting behind her.

Tanya only gave a small nod of encouragement.

"Ok, next on our list is distraction. Can anyone tell me how one goes about distracting the enemy?"

Weiss quickly raised her hand before Yang could. The heiress only glared down at the blonde, who had been a little too excited to share her "barbaric" and "demeaning" idea of distraction.

Viktoriya's eyes widened as she recognized the white hair. "Oh, Miss Schnee! I did not realize you were in this class!"

Weiss forced a smile and raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe we have met, Miss Serebryakov?"

Viktoriya smiled. "Oh, I'm semi-close with your sister! She talks about you quite a bit. She's very proud of you!"

The Schnee could only blush a little. The lieutenant noticed the uncomfortable look on her face and pushed forward. "Eh, anyway, what example did you come up with?"

The heiress cleared her throat. "Well, the use of fake targets in warfare could draw enemy fire while the main force could either attack or retreat."

"Exactly. One of the strategies used by the Kingdoms was to send a small force to a certain point where they could make as much noise as they can, so the enemy could be drawn to them. And the main force would normally attack them from behind."

"Do you know of any major battles where one of the Kingdoms used this?"

Weiss thought for a couple seconds before answering. "Well, I am aware Mantle used their knowledge of the mountains and terrain to create noise in order to distract the enemy. Using the echoes created from the mountain passes, they would pretend they were a larger force than they really were."

Viktoriya nodded. "Take close note, class, this battle was an effective use of distraction. On the next slide is a list of major battles that effectively implemented distractive methods to fool the enemy,"

While Viktoriya explained the slide, Tanya carefully watched from the sidelines, taking note of her subordinate. So far she was doing a fair job. Not quite professor level, but good enough to be a substitute when she had errands to do. And she would never admit this, but she also took tiny notes on Viktoriya's teaching method to incorporate it into her own lectures. Hey, she needed all the help she could get; teaching without physical abuse was new to her.

Viktoriya eyed the clock on the wall. Goodness, has time slipped past that fast? "Now last, but not least, is encirclement," she tapped her Scroll, "Now, this strategy was particularly deadly for anyone that fell to it. Anyone care to tell me why?"

This time several hands raised, perhaps emboldened by the past few students who had gone before them. Viktoriya pointed at random. "Yes?"

To CRDL's surprise, Russel himself stood up, tight-lipped and clearly anxious. "If the enemy completely surrounds you, I'm guessing you're pretty much screwed."

The class tittered at this as Russel sat back down. Tanya herself cracked a small smile. Viktoriya giggled. "That's one way to put it. But yes, you are nonetheless right. If the enemy was able to surround you from all sides, there is little to no hope of escape."

She turned to a slide showing several pictures of forts under siege from enemy troops. "Because of the troops, it was difficult to send extra aid or supplies to the fort. In a way, this is similar to blockade, which I am sure you all learned yesterday."

The lieutenant tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Now there are several battles I would like to go over, but I'm pressed for time. So I think we'll just hand out assignments so you can turn it in next class period."

She turned to her silent superior. "Major?"

Tanya grunted a bit as she closed her Scroll and stood up from her chair. "I have just sent out your assignments to your Scrolls. Long story short, I want a brief chart explaining the pros and cons of the three strategies, and how they are able to interconnect with each other for increased effectiveness. Nothing too hard."

With that, the bell suddenly went off, signaling the end of the period. Everyone stood up, chattering wildly amongst themselves. Tanya and Viktoriya watched as the kids filed out of the room.

Ruby hopped up and down excitedly as she shoved all her notes into her bag. "Combat Class next! Can't wait to see my baby in action!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "There's no guarantee that you'll get picked."

"You never know~!"

As the last teen exited the room and shut the door, Viktoriya slumped over and let out a relieved sigh. She sheepishly turned to Degurechaff. "So…how did I do?"

 **[-]**

"What do you mean I did 'okay'?"

Viktoriya's tone was exasperated and pitiful as she trailed along Tanya's footsteps.

Tanya fought down a small smile as she strode through the halls of Beacon. Passing students made sure to keep a good enough distance from the tiny blonde. Respect or fear, she didn't care. As long as they didn't attempt to demean her, things would get along just fine.

Currently they were both on their way to the cafeteria after visiting the armory to stock up on many different types of Dust rounds and other ammunition for their weapons.

Like her, Viktoriya also brought her gun to Beacon, stashed away in a briefcase under her bed. Unlike Tanya's however, Viktoriya's gun was currently the newest gun on the block, a fully automatic light-machine gun with little recoil. It was a bit bulkier than the other guns, but she didn't seem to mind. Only problems with it were that it only accepted one type of Dust round; anything else and the weapon would fall apart. So the Lieutenant would have to use purely Burn Dust for her gun. But there was no denying that it was efficient.

Plus, it was always amusing to see the looks on enemy's faces when the seemingly demure and kind woman pulled out a LMG from behind her back.

"I said you did 'okay', because you could have managed your time more effectively," Tanya said, looking over her shoulder, "Asking the students questions about the topic was a smart move, but you did it too often and wasted some precious time."

Viktoriya pouted. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to get to know the students better…"

"Agreed, but you can do that when we have more time. But you did do a good job, I will admit. I will trust that you will keep things in order when I have matters to attend to."

The 21-year old blushed a bit but said nothing, as if to accept the criticism and praise.

She let her eyes wander a bit, admiring the architecture and Gothic design of the place. There was nothing like this in Atlas. The walls there were grey, metallic, cold, and boring. Not to say she hated the place, no she loved it. Atlas took her in when her village was torn to pieces. And as she was rejected from every other settlement they came across, Atlas welcomed her with open arms. We could always use more people, they said. To young Viktoriya's eyes, they were heroes to her. Which is why she joined the military as soon as she was able to.

That's why she liked Major Degurechaff so much. She suffered the same she did: losing her village, friends killed, and left alone in a dangerous world. But Tanya was stronger than her. For her age, she was far more mature than Viktoriya ever was at the time.

Yes, she was scary and cruel at times, but Viktoriya knew that it was the events of her life that changed her like that. Trauma was not a little thing in the mind of a little girl.

The young woman caught up to her superior and shot her a quizzical look. "Major, why did you decide we should eat at the cafeteria rather than at the professor's lounge?"

Degurechaff felt a tiny drop of sweat on her brow. She would never admit it to them, but she found the other professors…were different, at best. Especially Professor Oobleck and Port.

When she went in the lounge to pick up some breakfast, those two would not stop marveling how "an individual so young became a decorated member of the Atlas military."

Peach just gushed over her, showering her with as much affection as she could muster. It reminded Viktoriya of the more feminine women back at Atlas, giving her no semblance of rest.

And Glynda simply stared at her with a mixture of disapproval and pity.

They all annoyed her to no end. Not that she would ever admit it, of course. She just put on a smile and acted as happy as they were. It was always best to get on the good side of your co-workers.

They both reached the large wooden double doors that lead to the inside of the cafeteria. They could already see many students laughing and eating through the large windows. The blonde gave a small smile at her subordinate. "You were the one who said you wanted to bond with the students."

With a little difficulty, she managed to push the doors open, revealing the full majesty of Beacon Academy's cafeteria. Again, Viktoriya was reminded of the stark differences between here and back home.

Atlas cafeterias were quite, subdued, and serious. No decorations, aside from awards from past soldiers, adorned the walls, and all the food had only the bare necessities included in them. That meant no desserts. Which was a shame because Viktoriya absolutely adored chocolate to an almost unhealthy level.

In fact she almost got in trouble a couple times for having several boxes of Remnant Bars stuffed under her mattress.

But the amount of sweets and goods in this entire room was enough to send the young woman into a daze. Never before had she seen food as filling and heavy and fattening as this. And she loved it.

Tanya herself didn't really care much. She had no such love for sweets, the only sugary beverage she liked drinking being coffee.

The minute professor purposely made her way to the cafeteria buffet line, which was miraculously unoccupied. Viktoriya followed closely behind, her mouth salivating as she saw a fountain of chocolate. This was no exaggeration; there was seriously a small fountain of melted chocolate that students were free to dip their food into. But she was a bit disconcerted to see students literally dipping the chocolate into whatever food they possibly could.

There were a couple students even drizzling steamy chocolate over their salad.

As they both made their way to the line, Tanya was very aware of the many eyes on her. She merely grimaced and kept walking. Maybe it was a bad idea to come here after all. Rumors of her methods have circulated faster than she would have liked.

But at least the students here wouldn't dare to pinch her cheeks and call her a "cutie".

Tanya noticed with some annoyance that the actual buffet probably didn't support the height of someone less than 5 feet tall. She managed, with some difficulty, to gather enough food on her plate before giving up.

Viktoriya wouldn't stop chattering about the multitudes of food available, a quirk that Tanya found sometimes amusing and sometimes annoying. Today was a mixture of both.

"Wow, the food here is so much more different than back at Atlas, right Major?"

Tanya grunted in affirmation as she strained to reach a fork, dangling just out of her reach. Blast her stunted height!

Viktoriya scrambled to place as much sweet-tasting food onto her plate as possible. "I mean, we never have this kind of dishes at home! The squad would faint if they saw this!"

The blonde professor just nodded and smirked a bit as she finally managed to get a hold of the fork. Standing back on her two feet instead of tiptoes, she turned to see some students seemingly taking pictures or recording videos about the new professor's height problems.

Instead of yelling at them like the students expected her to, she simply gave a sweet smile and waved a bit.

Not to say that the smile wasn't disconcerting, however. Actually, the students would have much preferred it if the blonde professor started to yell at them. But instead they got a smile that reeked of death and misery. There was no warmth in the smile. Only the promise of true agony if they crossed paths with her again.

All the students wordlessly deleted any footage they captured.

Viktoriya turned just in time to see several sweating students and a whistling Degurechaff, who had been waiting patiently for her.

Thinking nothing of it, the clueless lieutenant dutifully followed her Major over to an empty table.

Lunch was almost over, with only a few students hanging around. Viktoriya popped a chocolate chip cookie into her mouth and squealed with delight. "It's been so long since I had one of these!"

Tanya smirked and speared a tomato along with some lettuce. "I knew you had a sweet tooth, but was it really necessary to take every single dessert this cafeteria had to offer?" She pointed down at Viktoriya's plate, which was stacked high with cookies, a chocolate bar, several loaves of corn bread, and some chocolate dipped marshmallows.

The young woman clearly showed no shame and opted to pop a marshmallow into her mouth. "It's not every day that I get to eat something like this, Major. I count this is a blessing from Oum himself!"

Tanya just scoffed lightly and pointed at the brunette woman's stomach. "Whatever you say. But If I even see an ounce of fat coming out, I'm going to make you run laps until you throw up."

Viktoriya gulped down her marshmallow, her face pouty and downcast. She had known Major Degurechaff for long enough to know that she meant it. The Major wanted her soldiers as fit as possible. "I won't condone any slackers", she once said.

But damn was this worth it.

Tanya only paid mild attention as Viktoriya started to initiate some conversation. Well, conversation would mean that two or more people were engaging in speaking. This was more of a one-sided conversation, so to speak. Not that either of them minded. Viktoriya felt that talking was a good way to destress and Tanya was pleasantly surprised to find that she somewhat enjoyed the chatter. It was a little comforting to have someone she knew and trusted here with her.

Instead of focusing 100 percent in the conversation, Degurechaff zoned out and scanned the audience idly. The students seemed to have gotten over their surprise and resumed back to their conversation.

To her surprise, she noticed teams RWBY and JNPR sitting down a couple tables away from the two of them, seemingly engaged in a heated discussion, with Miss Rose lightly slamming a milk carton down on the table, much to her Miss Schnee's ire, who got milk splattered all over her.

Mr. Arc seemed to be in the position of interest, anxiety exuding from every pore.

She didn't really like, or care, to stick her nose in other people's affairs. Nevertheless, she couldn't help but wonder what on Remnant got them all so heated anyway? From the looks of things, Arc seemed to be in a state of denial, and worry was the predominant feature in the faces of his teammates and on RWBY's.

She couldn't help but overhear snippets of the conversation. Something about "bullies" and "Cardin".

Tanya chewed slowly on her tomato as she flashed back to her files. Before classes, she had read up on many of the students' profiles. Their personal life, background, everything.

Cardin Winchester's profile did capture some modicum of attention. He was a troubled child back at his respective academy before he came to Beacon. Constantly getting into fights, throwing around his weight as the first child of the Winchester Family, and, of course, notorious for being racist towards Faunus.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, now that she thought about it. Much like the Schnee family being under fire for their treatment of the Faunus, the Winchester's were known for their old gang bloodline, often times ganging up on Faunus and torturing them.

It was unknown if they actually did so today, but they were fairly quiet nowadays.

She was torn from her thoughts as she heard a yell behind her. Tanya and Viktoriya faced the noise a couple tables down.

A lone rabbit Faunus with brown hair and big, floppy ears was being harassed by team CRDL. Pulling on her ears, verbal abuse, all that jazz.

Tanya heard Viktoriya grimace a bit. "How terrible. That poor girl doesn't deserve that. Shouldn't we do something, Major?"

Contrary to popular Faunus beliefs, Tanya did not hate the Faunus. She hated what the White Fang did and for making her job so difficult, but she didn't hate the Faunus race as a whole.

She slowly stood up, straightened her clothes, and strode purposefully towards the group, with Viktoriya close behind, both putting on their game faces.

The entire cafeteria eyed the two, whispering and pulling out their Scrolls.

Yang bumped Blake's arm. "Looks like things are gonna get exciting around here."

Team CRDL was too preoccupied to hear the murmurs of fear around them as they continually harassed the young woman, who was beginning to tear up from her abuse.

Tanya stopped a couple meters away from them and cleared her throat. "Will you explain to me what you are doing, Mr. Winchester?"

Cardin jumped and turned around slowly, eyes wide and sweat beading on his brow. "N-Nothing, Major Degurechaff, just having a good laugh with my friend here."

The rest of his team recoiled a bit as Tanya smirked slightly. Russel felt himself fidget in embarrassment as Viktoriya turned her disproving eyes on him. "Please define 'fun' for me, Mr. Winchester. I think you and I have very different definitions about what fun is."

Cardin gulped, his life flashing before his eyes. "Well…uh…"

Before he could get any further, Tanya had already stepped forward and exerted a punishing grip on Cardin's hand, which was clutched around the girl's ear.

Cardin felt extreme pressure on his wrist, forcing him to drop the ear and focus Aura into pushing back, lest the tiny girl broke it.

The bunny girl wisely stepped back, with Viktoriya massaging her shoulders and asking if she was feeling ok.

Cardin shook with fear as Tanya effortlessly twisted his arm into an extremely awkward position. "You may have gotten away with this behavior because of your family's influence in whatever back-washed academy you went to before Beacon, but do not think I will be cowed by it."

Her eyes flashed a steely gold. "If I ever see such actions again, I will make my class more of a hell than it already is."

Cardin and his group whimpered a bit as Degurechaff bared her teeth in a close approximation of a smile. "And trust me. I know what hell feels like."

On that note, she relinquished her grip on the arm and shoved the teen back in his seat.

A few seconds later, she turned her eyes on the rest of his team. "What are you staring at!" she barked, "Get out of here!"

At her words, team CRDL leaped a good foot into the air. "Y-Yes, Major Degurechaff!"

They collectively sprinted out of the cafeteria, closing the doors behind them with a boom.

The entire cafeteria was silent as Tanya wiped her hand off on a nearby napkin. The teen's fist had been filthy.

The minute professor turned to the shaking bunny girl. Wordlessly, she tossed a wet-wipe at her. The girl barely caught it. "Wipe off your ear. That fool's hand had grease all over it."

The Faunus mumbled a soft thanks and started to tend to her ear, aided by the ever benevolent Viktoriya.

Tanya turned her slowly fading gold eyes on the young woman. "What's your name?"

The teen flinched. "Velvet Scarlatina, miss."

"Well, Velvet, if that buffoon and his cronies start harassing you or anyone else, you contact me, understood?"

Velvet blushed a bit and bowed profusely. "Y-Yes, ma'am!"

The doors to the cafeteria boomed as they slammed open, revealing a very angry blonde woman. Tanya groaned internally. What did she want now?

Glynda glared down at Degurechaff as she made her way down the cafeteria. Students in her way wisely stepped back, fear written all over their faces.

Tanya stood up straight and put on an innocent expression. "Professor Goodwitch. What brings you here?"

"Don't try to put this off," Glynda snapped, "I had a run-in with team CRDL, who told me what you did."

Degurechaff smiled. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Spare me the drivel, you're coming with me. Ozpin wants to talk to you about your current methods."

The blonde woman turned her heated eyes onto Viktoriya, who had started to follow her superior. "Not you, Lieutenant Serebryakov.

Viktoriya almost argued if not for Tanya raising a placating arm. "…Yes, ma'am."

Velvet started to speak. "B-But, Professor Goodwitch, she helpe-"

"I am well aware of what she did, Miss Scarlatina. That does not change she assaulted a student in a way that could have been solved peacefully."

The bunny girl squeaked and looked down to the floor.

Tanya cleared her throat and stepped alongside Glynda. "Very well, lead the way."

The duo walked out of the cafeteria doors, well aware of the many rumors certain to circulate the halls. Snapping Scrolls followed their wake soon to be posted on the web.

Tanya certainly didn't care; she did what she had to do, and her actions would bring about sympathy and respect.

Ruby gulped down her food, which had been settled in her mouth for the entirety of the encounter. "That was scary."

Jaune gulped. "You can say that again. It's like Major Degurechaff is a miniature version of Professor Goodwitch. Both are scarier than a Deathstalker/Nevermore hybrid."

Nora hopped up and down in her seat. "That makes me wanna play with wittle Tanya even more!"

"I seriously advise you don't do that, Nora." Ren and Pyyrha said.

Yang popped a loaf of bread into her mouth. "But for someone who's so mean, she really helped out that poor girl."

Blake grunted. "Maybe, but she could just be doing it for her image."

In truth, Blake was feeling a bit conflicted. For a girl who exterminated any member of the White Fang she came across, it was surprising to see her help out a Faunus.

Maybe she wasn't a racist as people made her out to be.

She didn't know what to feel about Tanya Degurechaff now.

 **[-]**

 **Right, that's gonna be it for today.**

 **Sorry for my** _ **really**_ **long absence, college is no joke. I might not be able to update as fast anymore, only on the rare days I have breaks and vacations.**

 **Again, sorry for not much action in this, we'll get more into this later. I was considering Cardin to lash out against little Tanya, but I chose not to. It would look bad for a teacher to hurt a student, of course, no matter the cause.**

 **But yeah, sorry again for the absence. Contrary to popular belief, I am not dead.**

 **Yet.**

 **Anyway, I hope ya'll have a great Christmas and New Year's. Next update may take a while.**

 **And hey, I kept my promise. Before the year ends (you know who you are ;)…)**

 **Happy Holidays my friends!**


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